Medieval male/female unification

[Guest jwall]

Hello,

 

currently medieval female modes has more bones than male, with different names, also logic of equip is not same (male has underwear torso, male not). When we can expect some unification (same number of bones, same names, same equipment)?

 

Preparing character controller based on current models is way to hell, it must be done properly, or it wil became totally unmaintenable.

 

Also why are stand alone models incompatible with base character? It would make FAR more sense to make naked body (male/female) for free (or some symbolic price) and sell equipment/animation kits as addons. Addon for medieval armor, addon for scifi hairs, addon for modern wear, etc...instead of having separate scifi, fantasy and various stand-alone models.

 

Unification would accelerate any developement and also it would save lots of your time.

[admin]

Because models have to conform to a specific design style for the base characters, Not too bad for the sci fi kit - and indeed a new update will feature all the sci fi styled characters as part of the sci fi base. I am confused with the bone count, as the female uses exactly the same rig as the males - ill take a look at this later in the week. The reason the male and female are different in terms of how they are done, is because as you can imagine, its been a huge learning curve in how to do these base packs and make them so customers are happy with how they are done. The consensus originally was to have a character system that provides different mesh groups, that hide or unhide, and swap out - hence the male worked like this. Then customers wanted a system where a naked base character was visible at all times, with the mesh elements added on top - hence the female version. To be honest, making these characters is such a huge time consuming situation, that to actually get them to the point of release as we did, was incredible. Going back to your idea of you asking why all characters don't use this system - the main answer to that, is file size of exports. The male character for example take a long time to export, and very very fiddly due to its size. Adding dozens of other styles atop this character would result in an export nightmare scenario. As most customers don't have the necessary experience(from emails received) to merge singular costumes together in their game engine, its imperative that the format for the time being always remains whereby the entire character costume styles are in one file export, rather than split per costume. Also, I am looking to re-invent the base male this year, and maybe approach in a different way. All ideas welcome

[maconbot]

Are you planning to add all weapons to the revised Male Base? I had mentioned here but not sure if you saw it.

 

Thanks for all your hard work!

 

http://arteria3d.invisionzone.com/index.php?/topic/87-weapons-on-base-packs/

[Guest jwall]

Because models have to conform to a specific design style for the base characters

 

Well, naked human is always the same, no matter if scifi, medieval or modern.....clothing and hairs is what makes difference.

 

 

As most customers don't have the necessary experience(from emails received) to merge singular costumes together in their game engine, its imperative that the format for the time being always remains whereby the entire character costume styles are in one file export.

 

Well, this is wrong approach and suitable only for very simple games, where nobody cares about perfomance. Also for you as artist it is nearly impossible to maintain and extend such packs. Smalls packs are the key. By selling separate packs, you will do very small exports and if anybody wants to have all in one mesh, he can merge these packs by himself in his 3d modelling tool (any 3d modelling newbie can do this). Check DAZ3D, they doing this for ages and it works. It is simple and updatable.

Btw, doing 3d games requires to have some skills and if developer does not have it, he needs to learn. If he is not able to learn anything new, he will never ever deliver any game anyway. Unity community is huge, but also with lowest skills (in average). Check communites of more advanced engines, situation is quite different.

 

Then customers wanted a system where a naked base character was visible at all times, with the mesh elements added on top - hence the female version

 

This is for sure better approach. When we can expect redesigning male model to be similar?

 

I am confused with the bone count, as the female uses exactly the same rig as the males - ill take a look at this later in the week

 

Female model has some extra bones for face.

 

 

To be honest, making these characters is such a huge time consuming situation, that to actually get them to the point of release as we did, was incredible.

 

I know this very well, I am perfectly aware, how much work it is. I am lifetime member, but for proffessional united medieval base characters I will be willing to pay once more and much bigger price, than is the price of the packs now. What about making some "proffesional edition" without compromises targeted at advanced users? Price can be much higher.

[maconbot]

What about making some "proffesional edition" without compromises targeted at advanced users? Price can be much higher.

 

Good points. I'd prefer a donation goal or something, rather than making lifetime members pay again. I'm sure Steve would avoid that. However setting a donation option would allow us to pay for things we want first, money always motivates.

[admin]

Thankyou for bringing this up. Dontations is something ive never done, and so I am very new to how this system would work - I truly believe that all updates planned should never be part of such a system, as they will always be covered fairly by membership, but for WISHLIST addons, I think its a great idea. Would we do a poll system via a donation method - i.e. we create a few polls for MUST HAVE, or WANTED characters, addon elements, etc - and raise a VALUE per idea? If the poll money is raised by donations, then we go with that idea on a specific time frame? In fact, work like this is already done by me, whereby a customer wants something NOW, but doesn't necessarily want full exclusive rights, and pays a small fee to get what he wants. Let me know your thoughts and we can set something up

[admin]

Can forum members let me know thoughts on this and how they would like to proceed

[Guest jwall]

The best would be some ad hoc agreement via private meesages. For example we need male/female unification, so we can agree, that you will do it non exclusively for us for some price. Etc...

[admin]

Doing by private message is ok, but we would would then have problems possibly if people wanted different things - ive messaged you however, to see how you would like to proceed.

[maconbot]

It is good to know that you already put this to practice. I'd suggest making this single person request ability for non exclusive material a little more public such as a forum topic of something. Just so we know we have the avenue if we need. I'd also suggest doing the poll system and not trying to merge the two ideas as they function better separately. Polling is a way of crowd source funding for you...a bid process would be even more fitting. And if our bid wins we pay...could even consider utilizing a service like kickstarter to handle this bidding for you i.e. create different project ideas and we can go agree to pay, lock in our bid amount...if it gets funded bam all $ processing is done for you with little hassle. Then just point to it from here. This also increases you exposure to a new audience. Obviously the balancing act would be not to get overly busy and miss expectations.

[admin]

So how do I go about this then - do I list on a separate forum, what I consider the work to be done, and the interest then starts from that, - how do I determine who has pledged what etc? Great to have this open discussion too, as we will get to our mutual goals.

[maconbot]

Could create a separate forum, but hopefully its in same domain as this one, just a link or something. I'm more familiar with Wordpress so I'm not sure what in vision zone offers. Perhaps anytime someone posts a request on the current forum you drop them a link to go vote. There may b some google docs type survey that's perfect for this. If not interested in the kick starter approach. May consider letting people start with 10 votes. These votes are free. They can buy additional votes for X dollars and get Y votes. Perhaps you just do this manually until you find something that automates it for you. Once a project hits Z amount if votes it starts getting worked on. I know as an artist myself I'd do 50% of my time what inspires me and the other half what brings in money.

[admin]

Just created a separate section of the forum for this. Lets get started!

[maconbot]

I just discovered flattr.com it could work perfect for the voting system idea...but makes it simpler. There are a few other options out there CentUp.com etc. But flattr seemed to be the first in.