Whilst dozing in front of a few episodes of Wheeler Dealer I got an email, and boy what an email. Mark has finished his first draft of the Reloaded character model and it's stunning.
If you don't believe me, check out the close-up of the face and especially the eyes. Now imagine when this guy is talking, and you'll get some idea of the level of quality Reloaded will inflict on you!
I am super excited to see this, and can't wait to start a new prototype that will have him put through his paces. Behaviour and AI will be a big feature of the new FPSC Reloaded product and the character will be the vehicle by which we will demonstrate this feature. Happy Days!
On The Coding Front
As I reported over the weekend I increased the speed at which I can compile the FPSC engine which means it is almost four times quicker for me to change something then see the results running. A breath of fresh air so far, and it really feels like the development has become more fluid. No more surfing the net every compile which I wait for it!
I'm working on the entity creation and placement now, and also the entity floater object which is the entity attached to your cursor just before you place them down. With these in place, and added to the segment stuff which is done, I will have rewritten the whole real object shroud system of the old FPSC forever and from here on in, all objects are created and retained.
A nice bonus to this new system is that all textures and shaders are applied to full objects, not instances, which means when you customise an entity, you will see that customisation in the editor right away. In the old FPSC engine you had to wait until you played the game before you saw any changes you made to the entity texture or shader.
Signing Off
It's about 2PM now, so time for some beans and toast, then onto finishing the entity stuff, and a big stress test on what I have so far before moving much further. It is vital I ensure there are no leaks, no loss in functionality and that what I have done will stand up well for the rest of the project. It's the best time to do stuff like this as the code is still fresh in my mind. Once we wave good bye to these tasks, the next fun task is Collision and tackling the dreaded 'fall through floor or get stuck' issues of the old universe.
This character is amazing, man I'm so pumped for the Realoaded and new features, even if there is a lot more time until it comes out.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up Lee, Mark and TGC team!
This looks amazing, it looks like EAI with proper lighting, lets hope the animations are going to get redone :D
ReplyDeleteWow that's amazing! Now all we need are some decent mo-capped animations! :)
ReplyDeleteOnly it kinda looks like he's crapping himself...
ReplyDeleteNo one actually stands like that do they? Unless the have so many muscles they cant do otherwise in which case they do I guess.
ReplyDeleteNo offense meant and I understand the model may not be fully representative of the final FPSCR models especially in game play and is a work in progress. Its a lot better than I could make thats for sure and well done Bond1.
Its just being used to seeing FPSC classic characters stand at at idle like that and walk in a similar unatural way with pole like stiffness to the arms, hands and fingers outstretched or swinging back and forth stiffly while walking. The characters stance looks as if the character would be much the same as FPSC classic characters, despite other the obvious visual improvements.
Fear not, Captain Constipation will not be making a come back! The character is not rigged for animation so once we have some walking and idle actions, things will spring to life I assure you. Mark has a few ideas for improved animation, and we're throwing away the old animations from FPSC Classic so we're heading the right way!
ReplyDeleteRofl "Captain Constipation" lol hahahahah! :D :D
ReplyDelete"we're throwing away the old animations from FPSC Classic so we're heading the right way!"
Excellent news! A big step in the right direction for FPSC-R! :D
Lee, could you suggest to Mark that rotoscoped animations might generate good results.
ReplyDeleteBasically, my what I would do would be to film myself running or walking past the camera, so my whole body is visible, then, using a tool such as FFMpeg (which I tested and proved it works for this - I can help with this if you're not sure how to use it), turn the film into a low-framerate set of images in Jpeg format. Then I'd use them as a background in a 3D modelling program (such as Blender) to create a super-realistic movement animations. You'd have to change the bg image for every keyframe you do but given you'd want to fine-tune each keyframe it wouldn't be an issue.
You basically use an image of yourself running to get the skeleton in each keyframe lined up realistically.
See what Mark thinks, anyway.
I realise I'm now positing my 3rd comment in a row, but I just want to point out that the incredibly fluid and life-like animations of the Sega Mega-Drive (Genesis if you're an American) game Flashback were created via rotoscoping.
ReplyDelete