I'm the OSARE guy. My degree is in Computer Science.
I've always had a slight talent for art, but I think of myself as a very left-brain artist. I treat art like I treat problem-solving in programming -- I try to mimic what I see by breaking it down into lines, pixels, vertices, etc.
Coming from this perspective, expect to spend years making bad art. Don't give up; analyze, read tutorials, try again. It's said that every artist has 100,000 bad drawings in them, and it's best to get those out of your system as soon as you can.
If you're interested in 3D art, the main thing is to not worry about the advanced stuff. Start with box modeling and learn how to make basic shapes with extruding and simple transforms (move/scale/rotate).
Find game art you like and look at it up close. Look at the 2D palette choices, or the 3D facets used. I still do this, pretty much with every new piece of art submitted to OGA.
The rigs I use for creatures/heros in OSARE are amateurish. No weights, just vertex groups. I'm not even sure how to set up kinematics (I barely know what kinematics means).
One very nice thing for a "unified blender game rig" would be easily sharing poses and animation. I would probably convert my models to all use a standard rig if one was available.
I am glad that you are interested. So here are requested details.
1. I am trying to reach the balance between complexity of the graphics, software complexity and visual attractiveness. So it should not be extremely realistic or perfect in all aspects. Otherwise I would probably never finish the implementation :-) .
2. My application can deal with .obj files. So the result need to be either .obj file or any other format which is easy to export in .obj. I would prefer to have it in blender just for the case if it will requires some minor tweaks later.
3. Currently my obj reader/renderer can not deal with textures. So it would be nice if the model will looks good without textures. However, I can add support for textures if necessary.
4. The model is rendered with OpenGL. So some restrictions need to be taken in account. For example: limited number of light sources (out of my head - 8), no shadows (I can implement simple shadows if necessary, but am not keen to do it right now :-) ), etc.
5. As far as I know, .obj format does not contains light sources for the model, so either simple set of lights should be used so that I can then add them manually to the OpenGL scene or some sort of trick need to be done to specify position and properties of the light sources (for example placing some "placeholder" objects with well defined names to indicate light positions, etc.)
6. On the model itself, there are four parts which are important for the application:
* Video plane - simple plane which I will use to place the texture with video frame on it. * Steering - some object (does not need to look like a real steering wheel) which will be rotated by the software when the user does corresponding actions. It just should be grouped together as one object. The software will calculate the bounding box and rotate it around the middle point.
* Acceleration indicator (tacho) - again, it should not necessary looks like a classical tacho. It just should indicate how much acceleration is requested by the user (0-100%). The simplest way for me to dynamically adjust the indicator would be either to have some object to rotate (like an arrow in tacho) or some object to duplicate (like a stripe of duplicated bars to grow up and down).
* Message area - a plane where messages will be displayed. This plane is actually a background. The actual text will probably come a little bit raised above this background. So from the software perspective this plane will just indicate the coordinates where to place the text messages.
All these elements could be seen on the screenshot I've attached to my initial posting to this thread. If necessary, I can send the blender and/or corresponding .obj file I am currently using with all the graphical elements mentioned above
7. Precalculated normals are needed in .obj file. Blender can do it during export.
8. For some reasons which I do not quite understand, I have some problems with text message rendering if the model is not big enough and correspondently not far away on Z axis. That is why my current model has dimensions of about 3000 units in blender and positioned far enough from the origin to be completely visible.
Well, I think this is all I can currently think about. Please let me know if this information is enough for you to make a decision and of course please feel free to ask further questions.
I don't know if I have time, but I'd like to hear more of the tech details for the model that you want. Maybe once I see the specs I (or someone else) will feel confident we can do it.
I'm the OSARE guy. My degree is in Computer Science.
I've always had a slight talent for art, but I think of myself as a very left-brain artist. I treat art like I treat problem-solving in programming -- I try to mimic what I see by breaking it down into lines, pixels, vertices, etc.
Coming from this perspective, expect to spend years making bad art. Don't give up; analyze, read tutorials, try again. It's said that every artist has 100,000 bad drawings in them, and it's best to get those out of your system as soon as you can.
If you're interested in 3D art, the main thing is to not worry about the advanced stuff. Start with box modeling and learn how to make basic shapes with extruding and simple transforms (move/scale/rotate).
Find game art you like and look at it up close. Look at the 2D palette choices, or the 3D facets used. I still do this, pretty much with every new piece of art submitted to OGA.
catchy! I think this could be a good "level 1" song for a platformer (like the original super mario theme)
I created an "attack" pose for the base sprites:
http://opengameart.org/content/attack-animation-for-16x18-rpg-base-sprites
Finally got my entry done!
Someone should make various weapon sprites to fit this animation! It would be a great 8-bit challenge entry.
Just a little smoothness adds a magnitude of credibility to a game. It's usually the difference between uninteresting attempt and indie hit.
The rigs I use for creatures/heros in OSARE are amateurish. No weights, just vertex groups. I'm not even sure how to set up kinematics (I barely know what kinematics means).
One very nice thing for a "unified blender game rig" would be easily sharing poses and animation. I would probably convert my models to all use a standard rig if one was available.
Message from Andrey:
I am glad that you are interested. So here are requested details.
1. I am trying to reach the balance between complexity of the
graphics, software complexity and visual attractiveness. So it should
not be extremely realistic or perfect in all aspects. Otherwise I
would probably never finish the implementation :-) .
2. My application can deal with .obj files. So the result need to be
either .obj file or any other format which is easy to export in .obj.
I would prefer to have it in blender just for the case if it will
requires some minor tweaks later.
3. Currently my obj reader/renderer can not deal with textures. So it
would be nice if the model will looks good without textures. However,
I can add support for textures if necessary.
4. The model is rendered with OpenGL. So some restrictions need to be
taken in account. For example: limited number of light sources (out of
my head - 8), no shadows (I can implement simple shadows if necessary,
but am not keen to do it right now :-) ), etc.
5. As far as I know, .obj format does not contains light sources for
the model, so either simple set of lights should be used so that I can
then add them manually to the OpenGL scene or some sort of trick need
to be done to specify position and properties of the light sources (for
example placing some "placeholder" objects with well defined names to
indicate light positions, etc.)
6. On the model itself, there are four parts which are important for
the application:
* Video plane - simple plane which I will use to place the texture
with video frame on it.
* Steering - some object (does not need to look like a real
steering wheel) which will be rotated by the software when the user
does corresponding actions. It just should be grouped together as one
object. The software will calculate the bounding box and rotate it
around the middle point.
* Acceleration indicator (tacho) - again, it should not necessary
looks like a classical tacho. It just should indicate how much
acceleration is requested by the user (0-100%). The simplest way for
me to dynamically adjust the indicator would be either to have some
object to rotate (like an arrow in tacho) or some object to duplicate
(like a stripe of duplicated bars to grow up and down).
* Message area - a plane where messages will be displayed. This
plane is actually a background. The actual text will probably come a
little bit raised above this background. So from the software
perspective this plane will just indicate the coordinates where to
place the text messages.
All these elements could be seen on the screenshot I've attached
to my initial posting to this thread. If necessary, I can send
the blender and/or corresponding .obj file I am currently using
with all the graphical elements mentioned above
7. Precalculated normals are needed in .obj file. Blender can do it
during export.
8. For some reasons which I do not quite understand, I have some
problems with text message rendering if the model is not big enough
and correspondently not far away on Z axis. That is why my current
model has dimensions of about 3000 units in blender and positioned
far enough from the origin to be completely visible.
Well, I think this is all I can currently think about. Please let me
know if this information is enough for you to make a decision and of
course please feel free to ask further questions.
Regards,
Andrey.
I don't know if I have time, but I'd like to hear more of the tech details for the model that you want. Maybe once I see the specs I (or someone else) will feel confident we can do it.
A slowish week but that's okay, vote anyway!
http://opengameart.org/category/art-tags/stone-age
Andrey,
You might find a detailed console in one of these Blender models:
http://www.blendswap.com/3D-models/category/vehicles/
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