Character modeling...

How to create models in XSI and other 3D applications and make them work in Battlefront 1 & 2. Post models, tips for application usage and share anything XSI, 3DMax, SketchUp, etc.

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gypsydevil

Character modeling...

Post by gypsydevil »

lets just say i've got a lot of free time, and I wanted to learn the basics of character modeling and animation in xsi. I've gone through the some of the xsi tuts for swbf, so i can make a basic prop or vehicle in xsi and place it in a map sucessfully.

However I'm at a loss as where to even start for the charater modeling/animation. Anyone know where I could find some good learning material, or better yet have some pointers or summary statements? I'm downloading the h2 xsi kit because supposedly it has some tutorials in it and thats a start.

I just want to make a very basic character, like out of primitives, just something i can use to test animation.

cheers
Lord-Bandu

RE: character modeling...

Post by Lord-Bandu »

if youd like to model a prop character (not animated) then feel free to make a dead seperatist leader for my mustafar map ;)
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ShadowHawk
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RE: character modeling...

Post by ShadowHawk »

But the thing is, what bones are included and how are they set up? I loaded a generic skeleton in xsi and compared it to a msh and there were more bones in the xsi skeleton than what were included in the msh and the names were different. We would have to completely make a new series of animation just to modify a model of a clonetrooper, which makes a simple modification into a nightmare. If we had the bone structures and labels, then we could use the existing animations for the modified models, lessening greatly the time it takes to model a character.
gypsydevil

agreed

Post by gypsydevil »

lol I've seen pics of your map(awsome) bandu, I don't think my work is quite up to that level yet :D

dang shadow i thought you were going to save the day for me :wink:

It is an xsi question so let me change it to what shadow asked, lets say you can make and animate a model in xsi, what are the specific swbf parameters and naming conventions, or are there any. Has anyone ever sucessfully made and imported a brand new model(is that a dumb question?)?


I've been looking over some documentation and the level of character detail you can include in xsi is insane. So I'm going to take some time to try out some of those tutorials.

About shadows post; how did you examine the skeleton in the msh, I thought mshes were compiled and could not be edited?
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ShadowHawk
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RE: agreed

Post by ShadowHawk »

I used Bconstructor to examine all the parts. It gives you the bone names, but I haven't been able to successfully export any model to MS ASCII. so I just use it as a reference. Heck a nice screenshot of the bones with thier respective names would help, but until then, the coordinances are displayed in Bconstructor. You can theoretically go from that, but we run into the parent structure problem. Basically, where do we put certain parts in the hiearchy?
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