Animated Human Character Ready

Community Forums/Showcase/Animated Human Character Ready

JoshK(Posted 2003) [#1]
About six weeks ago I proposed getting a professional artist to model and animate a generic human character model. The model is ready, in 4000 and 1500 poly versions. Animations include idle, firing a shotgun, running, walking, firing a pistol, jump, land, and crouch. The model is in .max and .b3d format. The skin itself is only a base that was used to assign UV coordinates. The figure could be easily reskinned into a space suit or medieval clothing, or whatever else you need.

For those who were interested before, or new people, it would cost about $40 apiece for unlimited use in your own projects. The model will cost a total of $400, and there's about $200 ready for it right now, so we just need a minimum of 5 more people at $40 apiece. I myself am picking up a much greater part of the bill. We'll just make separate personal check out directly to the artist.

Unless you are seriously interested, please don't post. It's easy to stand by and criticize someone who is trying to do something.

http://www.leadwerks.com/storage/run.avi




CodeGit(Posted 2003) [#2]
Halo

Great idea.


Jack_Norton(Posted 2003) [#3]
Hmm... why don't buy Poser 5 which comes with nice male/female low-poly figures at 199$ ?


Doggie(Posted 2003) [#4]
That's great. He looks kinda like a cross between Ed Harris and Bruce Willis.

Doggie


Gabriel(Posted 2003) [#5]
Hmm... why don't buy Poser 5 which comes with nice male/female low-poly figures at 199$ ?


A friend of mine has Poser 5, and I certainly haven't seen any low-poly figures with it. Unless you call 40,000 polys low poly. I seem to recall the meshes were segmented too, lacking any useable way to UV map them for game use, and with no way to export to b3d.


Jack_Norton(Posted 2003) [#6]
Poser 5 does has low-poly figures, not sure how much polys (I should go to the boss pc to check it).
You can export to .3ds and using Unwrap3D is really easy to adjust UV and export to B3D.
Not my intention to interfere with your projects, but having to pay 400$ an artist while you can get more models (and a nice program too!) spending less is not much sense for me... :)


Anthony Flack(Posted 2003) [#7]
I haven't seen anything nice made with poser. Halo's model is nicely animated too. And he's not asking for $400, he's asking for $40.

He also specifically said this:


Unless you are seriously interested, please don't post. It's easy to stand by and criticize someone who is trying to do something.



Hope it's working out okay for you Halo. Nice to see someone actually follow through with an idea.


Jack_Norton(Posted 2003) [#8]
ok sorry about that, in effect poser 5 is more oriented to pre-rendered 3D images, I've looked it more closer :)


Ricky Smith(Posted 2003) [#9]
Halo - nice one - sign me up - I'm always looking for models to play with ! $40 dollars won't break the bank.
I would be quite happy to add some additional animation sequences as well if anyone else in the pool requires them.
I'll have to put him on a diet though - he looks a bit thick round the waist. Nothing that a bit of tweaking wont sort out.

Cheers
Smiff


WendellM(Posted 2003) [#10]
I agree, Smiff, and that's why I've already signed on to buy. Since I find it much easier to edit a model than to create from scratch, I plan to use this as a starting point for tweaking the mesh into different characters and adding more animations (and if they turn out well, I'll share them freely with other buyers).


Litobyte(Posted 2003) [#11]
Nice run animation :-)


Ginger Tea(Posted 2003) [#12]
its moby

quick run


Tri|Ga|De(Posted 2003) [#13]
How many is on the list now?

I wold like to join this, but I don't have to much money!


JoshK(Posted 2003) [#14]
Smiff and WendellM explicitly said they were in. I myself am putting in $100, and someone else I know is willing to go $100. That puts us at $280 right now. We need three more people at $40 apiece, and after that the price starts coming down per person. I'm also spening $30 to buy Unwrap3D for better conversions.


Ricky Smith(Posted 2003) [#15]
@WendellM
That's cool - I'm pretty good at animating but not so hot as a modeller - although I am learning !
Getting a good model pre-rigged and with some base animations is a perfect starting point.
I also have access to 3d Max/Character Studio so I can skin different models onto the biped to re-use animations or make any tweaks that may be necessary.
As a learning exercise I recently created a set of .b3d animations using Psionic's Ninja and Paul Steeds Original Quake3 .bip files.

You can download them (for educational purposes)at:

http://www.freewebs.com/smiff/b3danimations.htm

Halo always comes up with the goods !

Looking forward to this ! :)


Jager(Posted 2003) [#16]
I'd prefer to pay $40 for Psionic's ninja :) (suits my meshes better) Smiff, you link is down.

The animated running sequence looked excellent though .. might be convinced if I could see more examples. I could probably only use idle, walk, run, and crouch but would like to be able to tinker with the others.

I use milkshape for model construction and animation, is there a ms3d format? for some reason Milkshape doesn't import MAX or B3d formats?


Ricky Smith(Posted 2003) [#17]
@Jager - link fixed !
Ninja's Psionic model can be used free of charge just give credit.

What Halo is proposing is a Generic Model professionally created , animated , pre-rigged and with UV templates for creating your own textures.
$40 is a very reasonable price.
If anyone in the pool requires the model in Milkshape format I'd be happy to oblige.


JoshK(Posted 2003) [#18]
Jager, I have it in .ms3d as well.


JoshK(Posted 2003) [#19]
Someone just emailed me offering to chip in $60, so that puts us at a definite $340...just $60 more, and then the price starts coming down per person.


poopla(Posted 2003) [#20]
I'll chip the last $60 as soon as I can see the animation everyone is talking about, I cant view it here though, tommorow I'll take a look.


Jager(Posted 2003) [#21]
I'm now in a more confused state than normal?

Do I

(a) pay A$80 for share of a great looking animated dud that I will need to fiddle with (hopefully not destroying the animation sequence .. good luck!). Can this animated figure be slightly altered without destroying the animation?

(b) Learn to use the Kaydara motion tool I down loaded for FREE! (brain protests!) and hopefully convert the animated mesh to B3D format .. somehow?

(c) Do the hard yards and try to animated my models myself in Milkshape (brain protests again .. you tried that idiot ,it failed miserably!)

hmmmm (don't look at me!)


(tu) sinu(Posted 2003) [#22]
would that be HumanIK, i just d/l the demo too and it looks great, especially with the ton of fbx animations they released on turbosquid.


Jager(Posted 2003) [#23]
That's Kaydara's motion builder 4.04, it has more controls than a 747! I haven't even got one examples animating yet!

It'll take awhile to learn I suspect.

Thanks for the tip on Turbosquid's animations.


(tu) sinu(Posted 2003) [#24]
im gonna d/l the motionbuilder demo too when i get my adsl on monday.

HumanIK is great too, and for the price i think it may be worth a purchase.

Just to stay on topic, Halo even though im not gonna chip or need to for this model and have been slightly critical i would like to say well done for following through with an idea like this with success. Good work.


digisoap(Posted 2003) [#25]
This model was made by a "professional?" I honestly can't say I'm too impressed, and there's no WAY I'd shell out $400 for such a simple, plain model, with or without animations. It's still a good idea, but not with this particular model.


JoshK(Posted 2003) [#26]
It's supposed to be simple and plain. It's supposed to be a generic human being, not a Nazi African Cyberpunk Warlord.


Zo Zo Zee Zar(Posted 2003) [#27]
I think the idea behind this is to split the $400 between all parties interested who then have a generic model they can reuse again and again by tweaking it and adding parts where neccesary.

It's a great idea and a great option for a lot of people as not every coder is also a modeller.


JoshK(Posted 2003) [#28]
We have enough partners now. The artist is uploading it tonight. I'll send his address out for checks to go to. We also get rights to the model, so if we can all agree on something, we always have more options to recoop our losses.


Dynamo(Posted 2003) [#29]
Is it still too late to get in on this? I just now saw it and I'm interested in chipping in :P


Dynamo(Posted 2003) [#30]
If you need to contact me send email to scott@...


PsychicParrot(Posted 2003) [#31]
Me too ... I hope this is still a live thread as I've just seen it. Got $40. Where can I see the animation? It seems to have gone from the URL you provided. Get in touch. I want people models!!!

:) email : themurrays@...


Wayne(Posted 2003) [#32]
How can we order this?


JoshK(Posted 2003) [#33]
It's not dead. I'm just working with him to edit some of the animations. I will keep you all posted.


WendellM(Posted 2003) [#34]
Thanks for the update (and for helping him with the anims).


Anthony Flack(Posted 2003) [#35]
I do hope this all works out well for you. I respect this "can do" attitude.


Ricky Smith(Posted 2003) [#36]
Halo - Glad to hear this is still happening - will you compile a list of everyone who is included in this and what the current financial state is i.e how much we need to pay each now that it appears that more people have subscribed.

Cheers and thanks for your efforts.


Kepu(Posted 2003) [#37]
Am I missing something, I interested of this but when I clicked Your link it responded "The requested URL /storage/run.avi was not found on this server.", I went back wards and I found Your Cartography Shop, Worldcraft-like game map editor, but not any human character model samples or screenshots. I hoped that this offer is still valid.

Yours
Keijo


JoshK(Posted 2003) [#38]
Yeah, we just need to finish it up. We have enough people to pay for it.


Adam Bossy(Posted 2003) [#39]
halo:

Is this a now-or-never type offer? I'm interested, just not right now, but in the future. Will you still offer it for sale in the future?


JoshK(Posted 2003) [#40]
It's really ready now.

I want to do this by collecting the money in a PayPal account, and then I can write a personal check to the guy. There's just too much too worry about if we say each person is going to send a separate check.

Pay with a credit card:
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=josh%40darkbasic.com&item_name=Human+Character&amount=40.00&no_note=1&currency_code=USD

Directly transfer PayPal funds:
https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=jmklint%40ucdavis.edu&item_name=Human+Character&amount=40.00&no_note=1&currency_code=USD

I want to note that this is not a business venture for me. I am just trying to raise enough money up-front so that the artist can be paid his fee. I don't think there would be much sales in selling .b3d models online, and I just want to get this model out there for those who are willing to help pay for it.