Mindblighter

The launcher looks nice and apart from the points already made here, I think it needs plenty of tweaking with the smoothing groups. It looks too mushy at the moment, like someone had decided to melt it a bit... I'm not sure, but it looks like a couple of polys are a bit twisted, like the ones under the handle/scope, they look like they've sunk even though they should be almost straight (I think?). Rebuilding them in a different order should fix it though.

The trunk has a 32x32 texture map and the "bush" a 64x64 one (both currently as a truecolor jpg). I also quickly made a texture for a burned tree. I didn't create an opacity mapping since the mapping coordinates for an object shaped like that are unreliable at best and as you can see, it has some seams, but that shouldn't matter when the tree is viewed from a distance. The total polycount for the tree including the bush-part is now 107 due to a couple of additional branches for the burnt version. http://koti.mbnet.fi/juhaa/Xenocide/tree_1.jpg

We're going to need partially transparent thingies for bigger trees anyway (so it probably would be best to test all the plants with an opacity map as well..). Hard to imagine any way to make big trees without doing them the way they are done in many games these days : simple polygon-based trunk and branches with a few semi-transparent planes on them.

I was bored at work and I made a funny little tree (~85 polys). Some sort of decorative bush...or something, go figure...Tell me if I should reduce polys, dump it, etc. For texturing (haven't edited the UVW coords in place yet) I was thinking a 64 or 128 sized map. http://koti.mbnet.fi/juhaa/Xenocide/tree_0.jpg I intend to keep posting random models on this thread later when I come up with them

Well...yes?

I thought the long thingys on floaters were some kind of tusks or horns. Don't remember anything about the autopsy/interrogation though so if they said tentacles, tentacles they are

About alien designgs...The now dead x-com genesis had plenty of new ones, could they be used instead of making our funny flying drooling rocks from Mars?

*scratches his head* I wonder if we really need that many polys for hands... But actually, I was wondering if it is really worth the effort (or polys) to model a face. Would a deformed 'ovalish' shape with a square nose do the trick? They don't show their faces much in the game do they?

Uhh...do you mean the clothes should be made as a seperate mesh that is included in the same polycount limit? And I assume you mean a 2-sided mesh "floating" around the model...hmm...I wonder how many polys are wasted hidden behind clothing in the end. Jacket/shirt/coat might be ok as a mesh object, but what about something like shoes or gloves? And I'm not sure if very many models will be wearing shorts either. But command me and I shall obey

I like both versions, they don't look too far-fetched (don't really like Star Trek-type clothing). Should I (or someone else) start modelling? Erm...what was the polycount limit again? 1000-2000?

Hehehe, that looks "good" and such a low polycount is quite ok for a static object IMO. Maybe I'll make an (almost) equally low poly horse corpse. But I'd like to know if I should add some kind of tail to the horse or further reduce the polycount before I start assigning mapping coordinates and textures...

Hehey, that looks interesting, I think I saw them on the Alliance screenshots too (d'oh..) Something like that would be neat with a higher polycount...500 should make it smoother :alienmad: BTW, what is that large triangle near (in?) the sectoid's hand? Some kind of reference poly for weapon placement or something?

Hmm Sounds pretty nice to me, although I think I'll join the "no drums" choir, but what it really needs is a bit darker tune. Sort of, umm...like it was in the beginning of UFO's intro, that was damn sinister. But that's just my opinion, I'm not really a music expert and I think it's pretty nice the way it is

There, I mauled the horse a bit, now down to 1008 polys and plenty left to remove if needed :: The low-poly horse However, it still lacks a tail. Simple to model yes, but how should it be textured since it's end would have to be partially transparent to look right...

Hmm...I just remembered I actually modelled a high-poly horse some time ago... Horse picture Maybe I'll squash "some" (bring in the steam roller) polys from that one. I've done it a couple of times on other models, it's pretty fast and produces adequate results compared to modelling everything again from scratch.

Very well, those limits are no problem, I usually make extremely low-poly models if I make such models at all. But what about the triangles/quads?

Hello Breunor, nice avatar you got there (I like wolves) Hmm, maybe I'll model some animals. But what is the min/max polycount for a single model? Smaller model will probably need less polys so let's say I model a cat and a cow, how many polys for each? And another thing, should the models be completely triangle-based or are quads allowed as well? Oh yes...the lizard was probably 25k-40k polys, can't remember for certain.

The links are working now, if anyone is interested that is...

Hmm, seems like the server is being fixed or something, talk about crappy timing. But, yeah, I'm interested. I'm not very familliar with animations (especially with MS3D which I assume is the program used since the models are coming from a HL mod). I do however know plenty of modelling and something about skinning & texturing (check the raptor, if and when the link works). So maybe I'll check the enviromental models thread if there's something I can do there.

Hello all! I've been part of another X-COM inspired project called the EDF Project. Well, after 5 years it has progressed practically nowhere and its forum is pretty dead. Walking amongst the corpses, I stumbled upon this project. And my, you've actually done something! And in less than 5 years I guess. So, instead of looking at the graveyard, I now offer my humble skills for this project. Here's an alien that I made for the other project (yes, quite high-poly and not of my own design). The lizard alien And here's a low-poly model I made for a Half-Life mod called Rival Species. Chaos Raptor If you choose to accept me, I'd like a short review of the current situation and some info on who should I turn to concerning this and that and if there are IRC-meetings and such, since it's pretty annoying to shift through every topic that MIGHT be of importance. Phew

Actually, that bug-alien was also on the cover of "UFO: The Enemy Unknown" (yes, PC version) which (like you all know) is the European name for the first game. :crazy: That would be an interesting opponent though.