Human character modelling

Hello. I've been making a female fantasy-themed model and I don't know what would be the best way of doing it.. Should I not connect the body parts with each other and make them their own groups, to make skinning and animating easier?

I hope there even would be any tutorial or something to help. I tried searching, didn't help.

Thanks.

This is only advice and you can do what you want...but...

Find the area in game creation that you excel at. Get others to help you with the areas that you do not. I for one really suck at character modeling and animation. I pay others to do this part for me. I can create code that is very good and works well. I can also create (now that I have a high end procedural generator ie by the numbers) textures with normal maps etc. I can also create non-organic models. From my experience the models I contract out are a single mesh and have good bone animation. They seem to work well in a7. The biggest thing I have notice about the really good models and I now require is that the center line is a set of faces not a vertex seam. The texture mapping is the biggest part of the work in an organic model. You should also be using a modeling program that will allow you to create models with animations in several formats so that you can market them. Blender is a good choice as it is:
a) free
b) exports to many formats
c) supports animation.

If I ever get the time to learn it I think that even I could do a good character model with this app.

Or Hexagon, but it cost very much but the models looks great. Look at some Examples(i haven´t tried myself :p): http://www.daz3d.com/i/software/hexagon/gallery?_m=d

So is it not recommended making the models with the 3D Gamestudio's own model editor? For now I have been using it to create models

(I really like modelling with MED and I don't also have so much other problems with it.)

yes, for not complex models MED ist a very good tool, easy to learn. But for eg a player human model it would be useful to try blender.

At the beginning it is hard to work with but when you got it you have a lot more possibilities

Well I tried Blender once and it was very difficult to understand how it works.. With MED I can actually get something done. Maybe I'll try Blender again then..

BTW could someone give me example of a hi-poly and a low-poly model?

Not really sure how big the difference is..

when you look at a high-poly model, it looks like this:

these models are great when creating games, but low-poly models like this one:

can look just as good as a high-poly model, and increase the performance of your game at the same time.

Hello,

Since everyones been kinda missing your question...

First of all,
MED is good for creating organic models, like people. Just takes time to get the hang of it, But once you do have the hang of it, its very useful, since thats what I use.

Don't just focus on one section of game development.
Sure, you'll get your experiance in that area faster; but whats the rush!? You cant rush art!

And then you can have experiance in all those areas, and not have to pay people cause you dont know how to spend 3 hours on making a simple human model.


I am very experianced in all areas of 3dgs.
I can't skin 100% yet, but im getting there.


Anyway,

Depends on the game.
If you want a game, with nice graphics, dont group different sets of meshes.
Make your models all one closed mesh, and learn to do that with all models.

If your looking for something that is cheap looking, like old playstation1 graphics (resident evil 1 for example) then do it the way your thinking of.


In the long run, for business for example; Single closed meshes are best for all games. they take up less resources, and can be used with my.polygon, since then it wont destroy fps.



Hope that helps.


Edit:

Also, make sure that you add extra vertecies and faces in places where the mesh will bend. Example: Knees, ankles, arms, shoulders...

Thank you. That answers my question perfectly

I really really like 3DGS MED and I have started to kind of "Learn it's language" already, so I don't really want to change modelling program at this point.

My goal is to make something similar to those low poly examples that zeusk posted earlier. I think I have a good start but I'm worried about the future, like the skinning and animating it.. I have no clue about human model skinning (I can't even skin a simple 3D wall properly). I have tried skinning a model I made with program called "Make Human" or something, I made atlas mapping for it and everything but I just couldn't get it done.

The making of the skin itself shouldn't be too hard for me as I am quite good with image editing...


[EDIT]

Would it be possible to show a skin mapping of a human model? I really have no idea what it should look like...

[EDIT2]

Also, where I should start when modelling a human model? Legs? Head?

bumb

While waiting for answers, I have started drawing a character myself now..

Here are - for me the best way - from a skinned model. It only shows the Skinn. I prefer to seperate the head from the rest of the body.

When I try to create the skin mapping with atlas mapping, I get only this:



What settings do you use?

Me too! In the Skin Editor i can´t see the model skinned!

Atlas Mapping with the whole model selected makes only sense for a shadow map.
For a character, you should choose pieces of the model, f.i. the face including the ears, the chin, the forehead and throat. Then you should get a reasonable mapping of it. Same with a hand or a leg choose one half of it.
This way your skin is separated in different bitmaps.
You can reduce the amount of needed place by erasing one half of the model, layout its UVs and afterwards copy, paste and mirror the other half to re-complete the model.
An absolutely different way is to export it to blender, where you select and save seams to get proper chunks of the mesh for mapping.

I tried once making the mappings for one part at a time, but when I for example select a hand, and use 2-side: front mapping on it, it will create mapping from the whole model... ?

Yes, 2sided mapping relates always to the whole model, not to the selected part. You need to use 6sided Mapping two times, one for the Upper' part of the hand, one for the 'inner' part of it.

Okay so it's 6 sided then? I will try it. Thank you a lot.