SPAWN: Merged Topics

[oddjob]

Great progress crix, cant tell at all that the poly's are dropping. Get it down to 500 and we are definatley in business. You might want to remove two of the claws, so its just used as an implanting device rather than attacking with three claws ala~ wolverine. Keep up the good work.

[Deimos]

Firstly Crix, you rock.

 

I love your skillz.

 

For low poly models for the game oddjob we're working on 1000-1500 polys. Currently working with outputting to a Half life model, though Drewid suggested we should switch to Unreal Tournament 2003 for models and I have to say I agree as there are some very sweet models for UT. I guess that'd come down to RK and the programming team though.

[oddjob]

1000 is good.....wait one second though. Were not using an in house engine? Why the Half Life, UT2003 talk?

[Crix Dorius]

Poly-count: 2316

The max. which I can cancel.

 

I think i must model it again... in one piece.

Edited May 15, 2003 by Crix Dorius

[oddjob]

One piece would be great, but man, I gotta say, good progress. Not a drastic drop in quality at all. Gettin out of work soon and I'll really get into the snake and sectoid....I'll have something for you guys tonight.

[Guest drewid]

For animating creatures. There's no point in us writing exporters for animation packages when there are tried and tested (and bug fixed, and regularly updated) plugins lying around for the using.

 

So really just to get stuff out on Maya PLE or whatever.

 

UT will have a better bones system than the old half-life system.

[oddjob]

I gotta say, im still lost on the engine itself....I was under the impression that the battlescape was an in house engine, not HL or UT. Was the geoscape in house??? Is this a mod? Just a little lost....

[Guest drewid]

Low poly modelling is a bit of a dark art if you've not done it before. Do you want me to have a look at the model I might be able to give you a few pointers cos I've done a bit? If you've done loads tell me to go away.

 

I'm sure we can keep those back spikes and extra bits.

 

Also I don't know if youve done modelling for animating stuff?

 

Again ignore me if you know this stuff but we'll need extra polys round joints and knees, keeping the arms as seperate to the shoulders would be OK with the shoulder bones covering the joins, it'll make rigging it easier.

[oddjob]

Drewid, any progs you suggest for animation? Currently I use Lightwave, easy entry level modeling I guess. I've got a little talent at animating from there, but I would really appreciate a helping hand getting started. Sounds like you know what your doing Drew.

[red knight]

Currently working with outputting to a Half life model, though Drewid suggested we should switch to Unreal Tournament 2003 for models and I have to say I agree as there are some very sweet models for UT. I guess that'd come down to RK and the programming team though.

I can do it, but i need the Spec for the system to really know it i am up to the task (that means the bloody doc on the format, anyone be my guest to find it and post it here so i can take a look at it), i am sure UT will have a better and polished bones system.

 

I gotta say, im still lost on the engine itself....I was under the impression that the battlescape was an in house engine, not HL or UT. Was the geoscape in house??? Is this a mod? Just a little lost....

That only means that we are going to load HL or UT models, not that we are using a licensed engine (we are doing our own), in the same fashion the current implementation support BMP and PNG for textures but nothing prevents you from doing a plugin for JPG for example (except royalties problems)....

 

For animating creatures. There's no point in us writing exporters for animation packages when there are tried and tested (and bug fixed, and regularly updated) plugins lying around for the using.

I 100% agree with that statement, and in fact i promote the idea to its full extend.

 

Crix: As always with your usual high quality stuff, just a couple of comments. First, dont try to kill the model to lower the polycount yet, first concentrate on the still (hi poly) look good, i am looking for a tool that makes you get bump maps automatically from the hipoly surface to use it (and still dont lose too much quality) in the low poly version... About the model in itself IMHO it is great (it armour looks like clay), maybe the textures are not the right ones cause it doesnt look too scary (too bright maybe). By the way send your models to Maverick for storing them in the xenocide repository FTP (xenocide-repository.net).

 

Greetings

Red Knight

[Guest drewid]

Drewid, any progs you suggest for animation?  Currently I use Lightwave, easy entry level modeling I guess.  I've got a little talent at animating from there, but I would really appreciate a helping hand getting started.  Sounds like you know what your doing Drew.

This is going to be OT but here goes.

 

You can get free versions of Max and Maya now. Most of the games industry uses Max, but Maya has always had a strong following and is increasing it's share.

 

Maya PLE ships with unreal tournament 2003, or can be downloaded from the aliaswavefront site if you have the patience and phone bill. It's identical to the package I use at work.

 

Gmax is also downloadable and is a cut-down version of max, very similar though.

 

I would go for Maya TBH. Rigging stuff for animation is fairly easy, the IK stuff is good to set up too, and actually animating in it is great with a well rigged model.

 

Tips for animation. ermmmm lemmie think. random jottings ahead. There are very think books written about this but here goes.

 

Animate at 24 fps, it makes the maths easier.

 

Use linear curves first, it makes things easier, honest.

 

keyframe the whole skeleton on your keyframes. If you move a keyframe move all the keys for all the bones. Think in poses.

Computer animation is fantastic because you can do the key poses first, then adjust timing afterwards if its out.

 

Animate straight ahead, (start from the first frame and go forwards), it helps to keep it looser and more natural.

 

If you are doing a looped animation (first and last frame the same), take a snapshot copy of the mesh on the first frame to "aim at" to complete the loop. Work from the front and work straight ahead, then only when you are doing the last frame copy the keys from the first.

 

Walks are the exception to this.

Average person walk at 2 paces per second, (12 frames per step).

Do the contact frames, (say right foot forwards), first, (frames 0 and 24). Do the opposite contact (frame 12). Then do the passing frames (6, 18).

Walks are really important, always do the walk first. Work hard at this to keep it loose. The walk sets the feel for the whole character.

 

DO NOT listen to music while you are animating, it throws out your internal timing. (Richard Williams told me this one, I tried it and he's right).

 

Buy vids or dvds of disney and warner brothers and pixar stuff, find a way to play them one frame at a time and count frames for moves, and look at their poses.

 

look at the 14 rules invented by the Disney guys.

 

Good books:

"Illusion of life" by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston

"The animators survival kit" by Richard Williams

"The animators toolkit" by Tony White

[oddjob]

hehehe, a lot to absorb....heck, I've got all summer. Im in college. Now is the perfect time I suppose....working on Sectoids now BTW.

 

Oh ya, Im officially a member now. Got the black suit and everything. I would really love to see this turn into a Day of Defeat type of thing. Just a hobby, those guys are all working for valved makin 50-70k a year. Not bad for a hobby. Now its on.........

[Crix Dorius]

Hmmmm...

 

Is this just me... Or looks the Crysallid really like a combi between Ironman, (the original) Wolverine and a Hellspawn ?!?

Edited May 16, 2003 by Crix Dorius

[LordT]

'Bout the poly-count:

Those dents and stuff all over him.. are they poly'd or textures?

[Crix Dorius]

'Bout the poly-count:

Those dents and stuff all over him.. are they poly'd or textures?

Both...

[oddjob]

Well, I read two out of those three comic books, so Im sure the influence is in there. And wolverine is a main influence. Think of when he is hunched over, ready to pounce. Kind of the idea Im going for with the bad bay. And sorry about the no snake and sectoid today.....graduation.....drinking.....very hung over......ill do what I can today though.

[Crix Dorius]

No Problem...

 

I have Time...

[Ion]

Thats true

in the same class

 

;O)

 

Just kidding!

 

Thats right there is a model that I'm doing I would say it is a Chryssalid of some sort

tell me what you think of it

I will probably do this modell anyway but it would be nic to get some feedback on his concept

 

/

Ion

[Vaaish]

It looks very much like a skeleton of an Alien from ALIENS sans the tail.

[Deimos]

It's a nice concept and I do like the look but I'll have to agree with Vaaish, it's too 'aliens'. Have a look on this page for the original designs for inspiration. For a Chryssalid there has to be some primal psychological terror to it so you want to be looking for in your reference research stuff that would not only fit in with the storyline but also cretures that evoke fear and translate that across into your design.

 

As a starting guideline for any alien concept, think what does this particular alien do?

 

IE Chryssalid, is a terror unit designed to impregnate victims and turn them using biochemical reactions, virii whatever into a zombie and then another chryssalid.

 

You might want to look to the animal kingdom for creatures that do similar things. Off the top of my head there are some species of wasp that do that so there is a good start but also I'd think about pulling some spider like elements in, maybe take the styling of a preying mantis (which just look mean period ) mix in some scorpion elements and you have a mix of creatures that if put together right will evoke that shudder when they're seen.

 

Look at the other chryssalid design that Oddjob did here and you'll see what I mean.

 

Finally I know this is going to sound nitpicky but it isn't meant to be. The format the concept has been presented, while great technically doesn't give any sense of character. Again I'll reference you to Oddjob's design, you really get the feel that the creature is cold and uncaring doing only what it does. This is a much better way to present the alien concept sketches becasue it give the feel of the character. Don't get me wrong, technical are really good for proportion for the modellers so keep up with the tech drawing, just try to add some life to the concept pic. Crix Dorius did a magical job of converting the concept pic into a model and he did it without a tech drawing. Action drawings are good.

 

The point of concept is that it sparks the imagination of the people on the team. The higher eveyone's enthusiasm for the concept, the more likely it'll get turned into a model. I hope that helps

[Crix Dorius]

Oddjob ?!?

 

Juhuuu !!!

[miceless]

Am I allowed to say that it looks a bit too spiky, or will I be shot?

 

I like the claws, assuming that you can work the story around that, but I think its overly spiky on the rest of it. Dont get me wrong, the spikes are good but I think there are too many.

 

Also, does the idea of DNA attacks make sense? I mean the Crysalids can take over the hosts very quickly (in Xcom 1 anyway), and starting from a DNA base it would surely take some time to spread. Biology is not really my specialty, but it sounds a bit dodgy to me.

[Guest Jim69]

Sounds a bit too much like The Thing really, but what the heck.

 

4 the DNA to take over the whole body in seconds, erm, just make something up Everything can be explained with fluff text and statistics ( Western politics is built on this theory ) They are aliens afterall, and what we know about physics could well be wrong, as most science "facts" are quite often replaced with more accurate ones over time.

[Maverick]

Another explaination is that the creature carries a virus that only attacks human DNA. The effect of the virus is immediate and unstoppable -- (level 1 trillion biohazard) even after the creature is dead if the victim is cut his DNA begins replicating at an extreme rate (which is why the tissue of the zombie degenerates and looks dead, the virus consumes all the tissue in order to replicate) It passes through the blood stream and quickly infects the entire host organizm. 15-30 minutes later out pops a new, fully formed cryssalid and the nutrient sapped sack peels away It should be noted that the virus is adapted to only affect human DNA and that once altered the DNA cannot be mutated back. It also explains the claws and all the blades on the body -- with all those blades it can cut a human with just about any body part, and thereby infect you.

 

In order to bind this to reality, future strength augmentation through gene therapy plans to incorporate a virus that changes the DNA code of target muscles increasing muscle mass by 60%.

 

Just a thought. (if you're interested I can write a full X-net topic on the cryssalid and the virus.)

 

-Mav

[miceless]

Still sounds a bit far fetched to me. Half an hour (or whatever) to completely reform a human body?

 

What about if the host gets 'killed' before it naturally morphs? It still comes out alive, even if it was halfway through its transformation. At least with an egg method you can say that the egg can hatch without the host.

 

Am i making any sense?

[mikker]

hmm....

 

 

it should take less then half an hour (even less then half a minnute, if each turn is 3 seaconds). We could say that the DNA infiltrate the most vital organs, brain, heart, lungs, and works outwards at a very fast rate. Now, if the body takes any form of damage, the mutation will just go into overdrive and do its stuff in less time then you can say "hello cryssaloid". Now, if you smash the body even with a blaster bomb, its temporary skin inside the zombie is harder the 7 layers of alien alloys.

 

...right?

[miceless]

Thats the point, if it happens that quickly I dont think it can be DNA based. Does the crysalid take over the human body (dumping an outer skin layer only) or does the crysalid grow from scratch, harvesting resources from the human body?

 

With regard to damage, where does the uber shield come from? The human body? If its an egg, then the egg could have tough skin (or whatever) right from the start.

[Guest Jim69]

Or when they designed X-Com they couldn't be arsed to think about it. Why not correct that right now? Say, if a human is infected, then 5 turns later it is possible 4 the zombie to break out of the human shell if it is shot, and after 5 turns it uses some kind of shell that feeds on the human body for the next 20 turns. Or summint like that.

 

Seriously, a lot of things in X-Com 1 were not really thought out 2 much, and I don't really see the need to strictly adhere to things that are blatenly stupid. However, dramatic changes should probably wait until there is an engine to test them on.

[miceless]

I looked at the UFOpeadia entry for Crysalids and it mentions eggs and venom. No DNA stuff.

 

I just think it could be made to sound more realistic. Whether or not we want to code it more realistically than it was in Xcom 1 is another matter entirely. Its probably one of those v2ish things people keep going on about.

[Guest Jim69]

I would have thought it was up 2 the CTD to decide what direction to take, from the general stuff I have read so far it seems to be taking a slightly different route to X-Com 1 ( Rightly so as we have no permission to make a direct copy of X-Com 1 )

[Maverick]

In reality there are viruses out there that can move with incredible speed. Nothing to the point of 30 minutes or 3-5 seconds for that matter, but who is to say that a genetically engineered virus couldn't move that quickly. Think about a snakebite or a scorpion sting, they can kill in a matter of minutes if not seconds because they travel through the blood stream. imagine if you were actually pumped full of 3 needles full of DNA attacking virus. It wouldn't be impossible for that to circulate your system in a few seconds and start attacking every cell in your body with an accelerated effect.

 

The other thing we have to remember is that if it isn't realistic that's OK sometimes. In X-Com 1 when you shot a buildings first floor out, floor 2 what still in tact right above it (that is an example of unreal = bad) but they also had plasma guns and lasers that moved the speed of a bullet (these are examples of unreal = ok) If we give people a little explaination to back something up most of them won't care whether it takes 2 minutes or 30 to transform and they won't care that it transforms in 3-6 turns which is only 9-18 seconds. My point is this: no matter how much we care about this and how hard we work, we aren't going to make people play the game. People aren't going to say "look how realistic the text is that explains everything, that game is great" What this department will do is give them a reason to play again -- so that they understand the story and the universe. The balance is to find enough of reality to convince them it *could* happen and enough fantasy to remind them it is still a game.

 

-Mav

[miceless]

Yeah, i suppose its close enough. I just think it can be improved upon a litle. I guess plausible is ok though.

[Deimos]

I looked at the UFOpeadia entry for Crysalids and it mentions eggs and venom. No DNA stuff.

 

I just think it could be made to sound more realistic. Whether or not we want to code it more realistically than it was in Xcom 1 is another matter entirely. Its probably one of those v2ish things people keep going on about.

There are some spiders that have venom that is so fast acting that it affects the victim before they have a chance to notice the problem. The nerve conductution velocities are just too slow to notice this venom paralysing the victim.

 

In the case of a genetically engineered creature why would it be implausible to have an engineered virus work so quickly? I have a friend that is a macrobiologist and some of the stories she's told me about genetically engineering virii now, scared me. Basically it isn't that hard to target an engineered virus that only goes after people with brown hair or brown eyes or whatever.

 

The really scary part is that for the most part this can all be done using everyday kitchen impliments.

 

Now go down to dna levels, and engineer it to foricbly rewrite sections of the double helix using nanomachines (not too far away and using nanomachines self replicating ability infinitely reproducing).

 

I was watching an open univerity programme on DNA and hereditarty diseases and basically the DNA replicates itself as a perfect copy. The nanomachine could rewrite it at this stage and set off a cancer like effect where the cells reproduce at an out of control rate.

 

To get it to work at the kind of speeds we're looking at the virus would be nanomachines carried in a neurotoxin suspension which would transport the nanomachines at the sub nanosecond speeds needed to get it to the necessary areas of the body. IE brain, stomach, lungs which is when the nanomachines would get to work.

 

The only stretch of the imagination is in the speed of transformation, but as its a game and the whole alien invasion thing isnt real, I think we can stretch this without too much problem.

[Kenshiro]

Chryssalid?

[Aosar]

Whoa, I don't know what makes it freakier, the humongous bat ears, the many eyes or it's innate b-movie look, ditch the bat ears and it would look formidable...

[Kenshiro]

Hehe, they're not bat ears. They were supposed to be big shoulder pauldron-thingies, but it didn't carry across I guess. I'll revise some.

[Kenshiro]

Revised...?

Edited July 26, 2003 by Kenshiro

[Aosar]

Much better, but how exactly have you done it, 'cause it looks like a b-movie monster. Probably due to the backround and the slight rubbery look to it... Perhaps you should make the "armor" look a bit more organic...

[Raven Squad]

Imo better. Spider like eyes are just great! Make them glow red and it is too scary to look at. Edited July 26, 2003 by Raven Squad

[Aosar]

Make them glow red and it is too scary to look at.

 

I don't know, that black, slightly reflective is stylish. Red glow might be an overkill...

[Raven Squad]

Well terminator uses it and he is cool

[Raven Squad]

Well maybe he looks like xmas tree when his eyes glow

[Aosar]

Well terminator uses it and he is cool

 

Terminator looks like a human and has only two eyes, while our jolly buddy has six!

[Kenshiro]

I drew this thing by hand. The look is what you get. This is a concept anyway. Anyone care to try to model it highres for the Ufopedia?

[Raven Squad]

Kenshiro dont get me wrong, i like this concept alot. And Aosar okey i admid that glowing eyes was crappy idea.

[Aosar]

It would look better if the head wouldn't be so much attached to the shoulder but on a short neck that would cause the alien look slightly hunchbacked... And the alien needs to look much more organic and natural. The armoured look makes it appear less beastly and more like a sapient race than a terrorizing psycotic animal!

 

No, wait, I said that bit about the armor already didn't I?

Edited July 26, 2003 by Aosar

[Breunor]

BTW, IIRC there's already a modeled chryssallid, in several different levels of detail. I haven't seen any new posts regarding it, not sure if it's done or not. Granted, it's concept art too, but it had a very cool, preying mantis look to it. IMO the insect look matches well with the high TUs it has, while this latest one looks more powerful than fast.

[Breunor]

This thread is a combination of several others related to the chryssallid. If it's about chryssallids and version 1, post it here!

 

Edit: Since the posts sort by date, this is a little late to mention I guess...

Edited August 22, 2003 by Breunor

[Cpl. Facehugger]

First off, let me say that the chryssalid model is great. Really great. I just have one problem with it though, I don't think its skin should be bright purple. Maby a dark black or green. But purple doesn't really invoke any fear in me. I can imagine how scary that model would be if it was black...

 

Anyway, I like miceless' idea of an implanted egg better than a virus. I mean, a virus would have to infiltrate a cell, supercharge it's mitochondria, and all of its nutrient processing parts to make a chryssalid cell, Im just saying that virus', even alien ones can't make a new chryssalid in seconds. Now, if it was just an egg, you could say that the egg undergoes [really] rapid cell division (like a bacteria) and in 7-8 seconds has formed a full chryssalid.

 

The problem with a virus that turns people into chryssalids is that it has to do a lot of things in several seconds. I mean, it has to replicate, hijack a cell, turn it into a chryssalid cell, release its offspring to infect other cells all 7 seconds. There are trillions of cells in the human body, and the immune system would be working to slow the virus down.

I don't think that in 7 seconds a virus could form a complete and self suficient being the size of a large man. It just can't be done.

[Breunor]

I would compare it to a nerve toxin perhaps, and say that the effects aren't immediate but happen quickly. While in the game it's possible to have a guy turn to a zombie and the next turn be shot and the chryssallid emerge, it would really take a little longer than that.

 

It's the alien version of the Hulk! I was just trying to conceive why the person changes to the zombie as well, a mutation seemed good for that. But either concept works for me.