Anim8or Community

First impressions: holy crap thats disorienting. I first open a program and am faced with hundreds of tiny buttons and menus with no idea what any of them do.

I mean, I'm sure it's convenient for people with years of experience in the program, but its no wonder people say anim8or is good if you want to do something now.

The real limit would be for the whole scene. And that limit would be dependent on hardware / efficiency of program.

However, the limit per scene might be hard to control: since the game might have hundreds of monsters on screen at once (depending on how the game works).

I'd say it depends on how 'important' the model is. For example: if the player's gun is going to take up the bottom of the screen, be in every scene, be close up, and take up large portions of the screen, obviously you can invest a fair few polys in it: possibly 1000-2000 would be a fair guide. An enemy's gun, which will be further away, smaller, less important and less visible anyway, might be less than 50 polygons. The monster himself might take 1500-3500 for a first person shooter, but in a top down role playing game he might be far less detailed: since more enemies are on screen at once, and they will be smaller anyway. A strategy game might aim for 50 or less polygons: where hundreds of grunts need to be seen.

So there is no hard and fast rule. It mainly depends on how many models you want on screen at once. If you want lots on screen: everything will have to be smaller to compensate, and each individual model doesn't need to look as detailed. For a beat-em-up game with only 2 models on screen, go nuts: even 10,000 polys each might be about right.

Instantly thought of Cthulu, or maybe the tentacled captain from Pirates of the Caribbean (whose name eludes me).

I'd say the angle of the lower jaw is far too sharp. Try cutting it a little and making the change of direction more gradual.

Heh, I loved it. Never chuckled at someone's videos from this forum

as you say, the modelling is simple, but definitely good enough to know what's going on. And enough to show what you know about the animation / rigging / sequencing stuff.

As a follow-up to the skull I did a while back, I thought I'd try the rest of the body.

Here is a WIP shot of the skeleton. I'm getting worried that the poly count is a little high (at about 1000 polys, 1000 pts now). I think the rib cage will add quite a lot to that too.

dammit: this whole model is tutorial-worthy. The texturing looks generally very good: the detail is there I think it's just that the contrast is up too high. Look at the toe knuckles or biceps for example: it is far too harsh a transition from the darkest shades in the model to the brightest highlights.

I get that he's supposed to be ugly and malformed, but the brownish-black colour makes him look more like a monkey than an ugly person.

But to be honest: if you just fiddle with the colour sliders / contrast in GIMP or Photoshop I think it will be an excellent model. It has a style of its own, is quite detailed and modelled spectacularly. BTW: how does it get to 2700 polys? The wireframe looks like far fewer than that :S

I'd recommend against more details though (necklaces and the like). Why would an incredibly ugly man wear necklaces? The strength in this is also in its simple, cartoony look: I think more details would detract from that.

Add an emissive component to the sun's material to make it glow (as in, be visible even with no external lights). Not sure if this would count as realistic, but perhaps with a good texture it might be enough (depending on what you want to use it for).

Hey all,

Is there a tool to automatically 'simplify' a model? By this I mean delete redundant points, or points that have no major effect on a model (they cause a 1 degree change in the edges they connect to for example).

I've heard of these tools, and they can make it very easy to add lowpoly background characters to a scene. Is there something that I can use on anim8or models?

Thanks