Doom 3 character model tutorials

Dean Avanti

Doom 3 character model tutorials
Im looking to sub contract some work for U3 for character models, as the process may have some similarity to the process of the current Doom 3 model creation id like to look at the method of Doom 3 character generation
as a guide to the process in next generation technology for unreal engine 3.
That way when I ask a sub contact company to work on my character models I have some bearing for what I'm actually asking for.

so what I need to see is an overview of what is done to create a model for doom 3, can anyone point me in the direction of some tutorials for Doom 3 character creation

Joao Sapiro

basically have a VERY good highpoly mesh, loads of details, have a lowpoly mesh, good unwrapping, generate normal maps, texture it, and put it ingame ( i dunno bout this as iv never done it in doom3 lol )....tadaaa

Dean Avanti

i have the low poly models which was UV mapped as they where originally made for ut4k.

i know that you need a high poly model for the normal map, I'm guessing you need a displacement map as well for the small details, then do you need a skin as well? is it a skin with just the flat colours or is it a skin like the old style skins like ut4k quake etc.

id like to see something that someone has done so i can check it out, I'm busy looking through the pimping and previews to see if anyone has posted their work, its one of those things you have to see what someone has done to see what the process is

MoP

Here's some good info from Pior on texturing normal-mapped assets:

http://www.pioroberson.com/tuts/tut_texturing_tricks.htm

You could also check out the AquaBoy images on his site there, excellent use of normal, specular and diffuse maps, you can see how they were set up.

diZzyWalnut

Mr. Vahl has already exported some character into Doom 3 -



just have look at his website,that can bring to You some ideas about the character's mesh and skins for Doom 3 or Quake 4 -
http://www.global-illusions.com/ga_c_spaceman.htm

He's wrotten some tutorial how to export into Doom 3 , but I can not find it , sorry.

Anyway - here's some great videos tutos - should be work !
http://trepaning.com/d3Vids/d3Vids.htm

Don't forget look also here -
http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/index.php

diZzyWalnut

Yeah ,I've found it - here's the Vahl's tutorial
How to create and set up a doom 3 Replacement player model

http://wip.global-illusions.com/d3tut/quick%20Tutorial%20-%20Doom3_PPM.htm

Dean Avanti

thanks for the links guys that really helped me a lot to understand the new techniques with the new engines

so clarifying, for a character its

a low poly model then a high poly model for the normal map
then you need a specular map and a colour map.

one last thing do you uv map the low poly model or just the high poly model or both.

i guess for unreal engine 3 ill have to wait till i get the engine to see how things really work together but looking at doom 3 i can get an idea on the next gen techniques on how things are now done.

MoP

It really depends on the individual's workflow.

The way I (and a lot of other people I think) would do it is:

Make high poly model first.
Make low poly model around the shape of high-poly.
Then you can render down whatever maps you want from the high poly to the low poly, usually it's just a normal map but technically you can also bake diffuse (colour) and specular maps down from the highpoly too, although this often means the highpoly needs UV maps.

Usually I just UV the lowpoly, render the highpoly down to a normal-map, then make a diffuse and specular map in Photoshop.

Dean Avanti

it would be nice if one could alter the normal map though a texture or a hight map converted to a normal map, ive seen that you can add seems, bevels, buttons etc to the normal map im wondering how far this can be done, can one convert the models rarther than having to do a high poly model for a normal map, it would be nice if one could work into the normal map without moddeling, that way one could take the basic doom 3 models and just add into the normal map, that way you could make your own character, well change or mod the basic one that is. Are there any moders in the doom 3 community that convert the stock characters of the game, or has the world of skinning ended and now you have to model and changes, are people modifying the doom characters without moddeling work

Eric Chadwick

I guess you could work entirely in 2D, but the results are going to be less refined than a model-extracted set of normals.

We add painted details to our normal maps, and it works well. In fact, we touch nearly every normal map after it's extracted from a high-poly model. There are always some seams or artifacts that are faster/easier fixed in 2D than by modeling/recasting.

It's also easier to add small details by painting a heightmap, then converting to a normal map, then overlaying onto the geometry-normalmap, than it is to model them.

MoP

Eric is right about this when it comes to creating your own character from scratch (assuming you have the basic high-poly geometry normal map prior to adding any detail in Photoshop).

However, Dean, what you are talking about with taking the basic Doom3 models and adding into the normal map, really wouldn't work - you would only really be able to add stuff, not take any away or change it. So all the initial model would look identical, you could only succeed in making it look more "busy" by adding fine detail or surface texture, so in the end it'd probably just end up looking messy.
You can change the colour and the specular by re-painting a new map, but any existing normal map is really not subject to change. You'd have to make your own models in order to make even slightly significant changes to the normal-maps.

Dean Avanti

I'm interested in having characters that can customise their character, adding armour to a standard model.
adding armour on top of the model, diffuse map over the normal map?

how one could do it in the old engines
one can buy or steal armour and place the armour on target areas of the character- arms and shoulders, body head and legs, if this was done in say an older game like ut4k or Q3 type games as one had just a flat diffuse (ie a skin) one could for example if it was coded into the game add layers on top of the base diffuse layer, one could have a second layer added to the skin for example if the diffuse layer had a character wearing leather armour on his chest say you could add another masked or alpha layer on top of that one that had a metal armour, kind of like having layers in photo shop, one could in theroy code into the game the ability to customise the skin so that when one changed the armour of the character it showed on the model. I'm sure this is possible in ut4k already the materials are quite advanced in that engine, you could use a texture swap and the trigger of it being something you coded in, you wouldn't even have to code it as you could have an armour dispensing machine being the trigger to swap the texture on your characters skin, no need to code that at all, perhaps you could make a skin that was set to overlay on top of the base skin an alpha layer with an armour section on it, then have something in the game add new layer on top of your base skin, I'm rambling here what I'm trying to say is in the old engines its possible to have armour being changed on your skin

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but with the new engines and normal mapping I'm not so sure, if you had a base model with its normal map and then if you could had a displacement map on top of it you could customise the model in game, there must be a way to have customised characters with the new engines some how.

Eric Chadwick

This is usually done by having the armor be different entities from the character, then the armor can be swapped in/out dynamically. The character has "bind points," usually bones, sometimes specific triangles, where the armor can be attached. Then the armor follows wherever the character goes, inheriting its transforms from the bind point.

KDR_11k

In Doom 3 they have a tendency to make all possible armors parts of the model and hide the unused ones with nodraw.

Dean Avanti

ahh, now i see, interesting stuff.

looking at unreal engine 3 i see it has an option like what you outlined-


Ability to add game-specific notifications at specific points in the animation.
Tool for graphically placing ‘Sockets’ on bones to be used for attaching objects to the skeleton in the game, complete with preview.
Ability to preview ‘overlay’ meshes based on the same skeleton (e.g. armor).

http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml

Eric Chadwick

KDR, I guess that's because they wanted to reduce the # of transforms, right?

Do you know how the nodraw feature works? Is it a per-triangle flag? Or do they use some other ID like verts weighted to named bones?

MoP

I thought Nodraw was a shader parameter, applied to entire elements - so each part that you wanted to hide/show separately would have to have a different shader?
I guess you could apply a Nodraw shader to a single polygon if you wanted ... but it'd have to have a different material than the surrounding polys. Probably works a bit like Mtl. IDs in Max, if I'm thinking right?

Dean Avanti

Is anyone making high poly normal mapped Doom 3 or Quake 4 models, Im looking to find some people for paid freelance work but I cant find 'game' artists that are doing high poly normal maps stuff, the only 2 ive seen from the game community is Pior and Vahl, planetdoom and planetquake have nothing about new player models, where can I find them and who is doing them I want to check them out

KDR_11k

Obviously noone's making anything for Doom 3 (outside of mods maybe) because there's no support for it. Perhaps people will start to work on Quake 4 but that'll probably still take time to get started. I'd join in if I came across a copy of Quake 4 sold for a tenner or so but the game's just too pricey for yet another boring FPS.