Sumea Modeller Challenge #7

It's great news that there will be another modeller challenge soon but if it's to start in a little over ten days (April 1st), shouldn't we have a theme already? From past experience, it's taken 2-4 weeks to decide a topic then another 2-4 weeks to decide on the specifications.

(I just hope I haven't missed a thread discussing all this already 'cos I'll look like a wank [:D])

Anyway, here are a few topics I could think of:-
-A female lead game character
-A photorealistic game character
-A sci-fi character or transport
-An RPG style town or building
???

i'm affraid you have missed it, though it was in another section so it wouldnt have been hard to miss.

anyway Souri has posted here that the challenge will be themed around the sumea mod
[url]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2740&whichpage=2[/url]

oh, and Souri - i'm about to post something on materials in UE which may have a bearing on the specifications for the characters and therefore the challenge. I'll pm you anyway once i've posted it.

The topic has already been decided, so there's not much to be discussed on that. Once the topic/guide is posted, we usually have a couple of days to iron things out or make any corrections, but it's all systems go! Sorry guys, no normal mapping this time. Maybe next time!

Anyway, I'm really excited about this challenge. It's a theme which is a favourite of mine and I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with, and also this will be the first time we'll be seeing challenge entries working in a game...

Just a reminder that I will be posting the topic up on either Thursday night or Friday at the latest!

OK, you just noticed the hard drive light start to flicker and the in-game music changed to be ominous and foreboding...

ie: save the game now, something big's about to happen :)

I have updated the thread with the challenge guidelines. As usual, we'll have a couple of days to iron out any problems. I'll be sending out the email notifications to all the sumea profile modellers tomorrow! (I have to be off somewhere soon o_O)

wow totally not what i was exprecting in terms of polycount and texture limit - should be able to go nuts with this!

one thing i that i noticed:

2 x 1024x1024 texture sheet for character (one sheet for body, one sheet for head)
3500 polygon (tris) maximum for character (including head, which is a separate model)

are you planning on swapping heads or head/body textures out? is that what this means?

I like the way all this community mod stuff is going.

This time I hope to finish my entry.

What is the prize for the winner?

When do we start posting entry threads?

I like the format that cgnetworks uses for comps (space opera).
Each entry has to submit a series of wip images, from
draft to final entry. They also have to post a certain
amount of feedback in other peoples threads, to get a community
score.

Just an idea, I know sumea isn't quite the size of cgnetworks but
thats not to say it will not be in the future.

No prizes have been organized yet. I'm hoping to gather something, but no promises with these things. You can pretty much reserve your thread now if you like. Just name it as "Sumea Challenge #7 - " , please!

thought of something: you have said unreal shadders are allowed, but for shadders you need masks, etc. if for example i wanted aninated glowy bits then i would need an animated material and the body texture would need a mask. i might be a good idea to specify exactly what is allow for shadders in terms of masks (the alpha of each texture?) and extra textures and whether thay come out of the total texture size.

it's probably not a too good of an idea to go overboard on shadders anyway for preformace reasons, but just illuminating parts of the texture shouldnt cause much of a hit, if any.

so if someone was to use the provided concept art, more that one person possibly could do the same concept ?

sure, but then your texturing skills would really be tested! [:)]

wow the time given for this one is great. i think i'll have enough time to do this rather than that cgtalk challenge which asks for more in a shorter time frame!

cheers

so, if we finish one category (heavy/support/covert) are we able to submit a second different entry or are we only allowed one entry each.
also, i use lightwave and dont know if its possible or how difficult it is to get models with textures and rigged into unreal. does anyone know as i havnt tried before. any help would be appreciated

You can submit more than one entry if you like.

Here's some tools/plugins if you want to export models with bones/animation from Lightwave into the unrealed.

http://www.kelpheavyweaponry.com/wiki/revision/Unreal%20model%20export%…
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/wiki/Lwo2psk

thanks a lot

Will you have a better chance with doing two characters?

i would doubt it. it's the quality of your work not the quantity.

hey there,

got a question to ask that someone has asked me to ask :P

just wanted to know if more than one person can work on the challenge for one character...

Eg. One person models and another person textures - with full credits for the tasks and its up to them to split the prize when one is organised

DarkAngel

I can't give you the official answer DarkAngel but I'd say it'd be a no. It's been asked in the past if this was possible, having one person do the concept and someone else the modelling and texturing, and it's always come back a negative.

Yeh, it's been asked in the past, and the reason why it's been denied is that it gives teams an unfair advantage over the other challengers going solo.

Can we add guns to the characters?

I?d be surprised if the answer is no. [:)] The more content made for the mod the better, right?

I think the brief says the character in the final pimp render should be holding a gun.

Sure, that is fine.. I was actually going to add a gun to the requirements of the challenge, but I've left it out since that'll add more complexity to the challenge (another 1024x1024 texture sheet, shaders and whatnot etc).

Also about the head being a seperate model that was asked earlier - that's mainly because the heads in UT are seperate as well. Actually, I've noticed that your torse can be seperated from your legs when you die in UT2k4, so the brief will have to be changed a bit. Can someone look into the UT2k3/4 models to see if they are like that, please?

Souri, UT2K4 models can be one continuous mesh. When you shoot of someones head, arm, leg or torso the engine just scales the verts associated with the bone to make them disapear.

so if that was the reason for the comp stats, does that mean we can do it all as one mesh? and what about the head texture - can it contian other parts or just head elements? ok, so that might sound like a stupid question, but that's the way it's worded and i dont want to be caught out on a technicality is all.

Can you check and make certain it is one continous mesh, please? I thought the head was seperate, considering the way the UT2k4 model's heads move independantly of the chest and body, and also from mods like that one which increases your head size with every kill you make.

I'm pretty sure in the DVD tut for getting a character into UT2004 they have there character all as one mesh. Someone correct me if I'm wrong thanks.

The answer to the continous mesh question is that it doesn't matter. The heads don't have to be seperate, but they can if you want. I have made and seen unreal game character meshes that have parts seperated for easier deformation reasons. The head scaling is to do with scaling the verts to the head bone. The head texture is on a seperate texture from body because the body texture is used for team colours. The head texture doesn't change, just the body texture, as I understand it. And Flying monk has already explained how the parts get blown up works right, I think the pinched mesh it leaves looks crap, Soldier of Fortune had much cooler effect for that.

the character created in the UT2k4 DVD is all one object that is to say everything is attatched in the heirachy but there are actual parts of the geometry that are not welded to each other (shoulder and knee pads).