Additional Player Models Based On Michael Firman's Art

[DMann3D]

Copy-pasta from the forum thread.

I was thinking about pushing the character art as well—I love the simplicity of Taekon’s concepts but I think it’d be really cool to have something more of caricatures for all the DF staff that’s going into the game. Michael Firman (http://michaelfirman.tumblr.com/) has been doing some amazing caricature portraits of DF staff, I’m thinking I’d like to make models of these, or along these lines. If anyone wanted to help me out with unifying some of those designs for a better read in 3D, that would be greatly appreciated!

I'm also asking Mr Firman for permission to use his designs, because that's a good thing to do.

Related to #1

[ChrAfonso]

I think this is a cool idea (and Michael's art is awesome!), but would personally suggest that we keep it more toward the cartoony end of the caricature scale - perhaps adapting some of Michael's designs into more exaggerated (bigger heads, smaller bodies) proportions? The body will be the same for all characters, for now anyway (I guess bringing in switchable bodies complicates the aniamtion side of things?). Looking forward to your upcoming designs :)

Personal note: I realize that I already strayed a bit from Taekon's style with the Brad face, however I tried to keep it reasonably close in the general feel (big head, button eyes (which don't really come out completely behind those glasses :D)). I want to try to keep to a similar aesthetic for any additional characters I tackle.

But diversity is never bad - perhaps we'll even get to a point in the future when we have alternative sets of characters and each player can choose which version he wants? :)

[DMann3D]

Alternate sets would be cool, though certainly a "down the road" thing. I was thinking Firman's Raz portrait would be my main source of inspiration, and would like to try to create designs of the other DF models in that vein.

http://31.media.tumblr.com/81a40ba4d5ce945d4899c1e987f244cb/tumblr_mkps0oCE8z1rsrynko1_1280.jpg

Switchable bodies shouldn't be a big problem, as we can use the same rig for all of them. The issue I foresee would probably be the color variance with the clothing textures as it is set up currently. Making more unique models would mean more unique textures and more files/memory. Doable, but I'm not sure if that'd be within the scope of the engineers' goals. Also, don't worry about straying from Taekon's style with Brad-- he looks good and is hilarious, which is all that really matters at this point. :D

[ChrAfonso]

That Raz drawing is awesome! and with buttonified eyes would totally fit in with the existing concepts :)

Yeah, my experience with reusable rigs is pretty thin, and for simplicity's sake (and easy procedural coloring) I'd suggest we concentrate on heads for the time being... but if you get customizable bodies working with the current animations, that would be cool! (but a topic for another issue #3 :))

[Cheeseness]

Nice idea, @DMann3D

Michael's art is fantastic, but not proportionally consistent. I think we'd have to take liberties to get them behaving nicely with the same rig if we wanted to mess with bodies. Heads+blendshapes seem doable though!

I'm with @ChrAfonso in believing that this isn't necessarily conflicting with our current stuff (duplicate models for individuals aren't unwelcome, of course)

[thegsm]

This image is also by Michael Firman from the same post. In the IRC chat we it was suggested to place it in the title screen (after getting Mr. Firman's permission of course)

[thegsm]

Realized my last comment should have been a new issue.

174 now covers this request.

[Abeloroz]

I believe we should focus in quality over quantity. Having the whole DF staff is a ton of work (dozens of models and skinnings if they're going to have any facial animation), and I think it's a bit overreaching for a fast prototype. I'd personally stick to the original request of 1 player model, and when the game is fully playable and fun, thinking about increasing the amount of stuff (player models, levels, etc)

[Cheeseness]

I believe we should focus in quality over quantity.

@Abeloroz This isn't quite the direction that we're heading in. We're going with an "open contribution" type model where anybody can contribute anything, and we'll pick the best of the best as defaults, and group matching stuff together.

We don't yet have mechanisms to get additional stuff viewable and working in-game and we definitely have enough to go on with at the moment, but that's no reason for people who're excited about creating assets to rein themselves in.

[Abeloroz]

Hm, I understand. Ok :)

[thegsm]

@Abeloroz, if you wish to focus on things needed for first playability then just go ahead, it's up to you.

[fierydrake]

I'm a programmer, but trying my hand at a little 3D modelling. In progress on a Raz head, it's my first time modelling a character so I spent a lot of time researching. Here's what I have so far:

Mainly worked on the glasses and nose. Jawline, mouth, forehead and hair are pretty far off. Quite hard this stuff -- kudos to the modellers.

[DMann3D]

Nice one, @fierydrake!! However, you might want to move this bit into the Player Model (issue #1 ) thread. Not that it isn't a good first attempt (great proportions, btw!) But it just might not get the attention it deserves in a thread specific to a particular art style. That's really up to @Cheeseness, though-- I just wouldn't want your contribution to get overlooked is all.

[DMann3D]

Also @Abeloroz, sorry I didn't respond sooner. I definitely plan on getting first-pass/style art ready for the "AF" build. My plan to make Mike Firman-style characters is a longer-term plan. I like to think I'm fairly quick at next-gen style character art, but not 1-week quick :P

[Cheeseness]

There's no chance of people's contributions getting overlooked (or at least, if there's a possibility something might slip through the cracks, the chances of that happening are probably the same regardless of the issue it's being discussed in).

If this model is based on Michael Firman's style, then this is the right issue for it :)

Nice work , @fierydrake! That may be the most impressive first time character model I've ever seen :D

[ChrAfonso]

I concur, very cool model, especially the nice and even distribution of faces. Doesn't look like a first-timer model to me ;) Great work! I can already picture him well when imagining the hair and some stubble on the face :)