Junkeh learns to skin! 8)!

It's some sort of knight or guard or something. Got the SDK off of Polycount, model by "Wildcard" (I think it's a different Wildcard than the one here). Anyways, I've only sort of gotten the head to a point where I like it. Starting to rough-out the armor. All of it still looks like crap.

Here are the flats (256 glorious colors... Thank you, Half-Life)

Looking OK, love the eyeballs; :biggrin:

Heh, cool, make the armour a little more detailed, add scratches and stuff and it'll look even better.

Nice sideburns :wink:

damn CJ...lookin good...how many man hours in it so far?

Doc Brass... :dodgy:

i was just wondering if you could put up some ratios as per the skinning of said model....what to what to get what??....seems thats my biggest modeling prob in milkshape OR 3dmax....if you would sir, it would be greatly appreciated... :wink:

Doc B... :dodgy:

Didn't he extract the model with HL Model viewer and edited the clothing, brass ?

i believe thats what he said, but the point is, there are ratios invloved...ex: heads two foot around and 12 inches tall, so it takes one ratio....if his head is only 16 inches around, but still 12 inches tall, thats another formula....although not a consistent one...meaning ya cant divide by pi and reach a standard ratio table....make sense?.....its the same in all editors really, except in autocad, you can set the mesh increments to coincide with individual feature, and change them with the touch of a button....(script)

Doc B... :dodgy:

EDIT>>> i get the feeling that most folks just nudge and wing it when they are skinning something, be it a head or a weapon....

Dr Brasso said:
i was just wondering if you could put up some ratios as per the skinning of said model....what to what to get what??....seems thats my biggest modeling prob in milkshape OR 3dmax....if you would sir, it would be greatly appreciated... :wink:

Doc B... :dodgy:

Ehh? I don't understand what exactly you want... Ratios of the skinning?

The model was originally for Quake 3. With Half-Life models, you probably want to UV map it with many different materials, as there's a 8-bit limit to skins. I imported the model into Milkshape, oriented it for Half-Life, placed a reference joint, and compiled it into a .mdl to get into HLMV.

ok...we are on track....for starters, how did you aquire your benchmarks/reference joints...??

Doc Brass... :dodgy:

i suppose for someone who does modeling in this format for a living, they would have eventually prefabbed thier benchmarks....ok...the difference between a monster sized head, and a human sized head....how do you get your mathematical benchmrks?

The whole thing was already UV mapped for me. I just imported a Half-Life grunt mesh and resized it to those proportions. Humans are generally around 72 units tall, with grunts being closest to accurate scaling (Barney's are slightly off, and Scientists are rather short and weak :smile: )

Reference joint is just 1 joint at 0,0,0 that has all the vertices assigned to it. All Half-Life models must have all verts assigned to some joint. Then you make a .qc file (tells studiomdl how to compile your model) and export a reference.smd and ATLEAST 1 sequence.smd (it doesn't actually have to be any movement, you can just export the reference post as a sequence).

Process of making a skinmap (such as CJ is using):

1. Take the polygons from the model and lay them out flat.

2. Take a picture and load it into PS. Now it's become a mesh.

3. Put texture on all the polygons appropriately; IE when you've flattened polygons for, say, the face, you put a face on those polygons in the image.

4. Reapply, et viola.

If you're asking about how to get the proportions of a model right doc, I 'm thinking you should go back and look at renisance sculpture and painting. you know, the vituvian man and the golden ratio...

When skinning, the UV map will usually determine your proportions anyway, so you don't really have to worry about it. Besides, you can import it and see it on the model within a minute or two and check proportions anyway.

For example, here was the skin before I started painting:
(Of course, when skinning, remember to always paint at 2x the size you want to import the skin at, and scale down. This skin is 512x256, but I painted on a 1024x512 and scaled down.)

Meshing sucks ass, it takes ages and isn't fun or that rewarding....

Yes. Anyone who has worked with modelling can probably tell you that meshing is the worst part - but it's necessary.

ok....we have a communication deficiency here...my bad....i use meshes in autocad all the time...its an inherently necessary tool for anything that is not a solid "entity", with and without merging of solids etc....

Campaignjunkie said:
When skinning, the UV map will usually determine your proportions anyway, so you don't really have to worry about it. Besides, you can import it and see it on the model within a minute or two and check proportions anyway.

...in other words, youve never actually developed your own mesh, proportionate to the subject matter....visa vi, your wingin' it.....yes?.....

Tracer Bullet said:
If you're asking about how to get the proportions of a model right doc, I 'm thinking you should go back and look at renisance sculpture and painting. you know, the vituvian man and the golden ratio...

no offense intended TB, but that has absolutely nothing to do with anything, as it wont tell me how big to make a monster head, etc, in relation to putting the skin on it where the eyes are located correctly, the ears or whatever are in the right spot, so on and so forth........im trying to figure how to start from scratch, using a mathematical formula of some sort.....i know it can be done...increasing or decreasing the apropriate numbers will give you locations....follow?

whew!....too late for a drink tonight??...

Doc Brass... :dodgy:

EDIT>>> and personally, i LIKE meshes, at least in autocad...they allow you to do things you couldna touch otherwise....

EDIT 2>>> i suppose i should also tell you for contexts sake that 3/4 of the modeling i do is of houses, lite commercial buildings etc...the other 1/4 is made up of various freelance machine parts etc....very very low tolerance stuff....and as far as modeling for games ....well, i have alot to learn, ie, the impertinant questions... :heee:

I guess I just really did not understand what you were asking.