Game ready mesh

[orindoomhammer]

I would like to suggest a game ready mesh where some of the detail is more centered around building gaming characters with removal of such things as the nipples and genitals and making the mesh more clean for gaming, meaning less focus on modeled muscular detail and feet in favor of more simple geometry with such things built using textures and normal maps. I have been using make human mostly as a base mesh to work off of and rebuilding geometry or adding new meshes on top of it if as armor or clothing and deleting things i don't need such as the feet and genital area as well as the bellybutton. I do however love the new mesh and texture make human is moving forward in a great direction, I just think that a game ready build would be a great addition to make human and would go a long way to helping newer artist and shave time off workflow for more confident artists alike.

[robertltux]

this would be done by a custom PROXY (and can also be partly setup by a set of custom "targets")

[duststorm]

Indeed it is what proxies are for.
There are already two proxies that might fit our use case well.
You can use the original basemesh that is exported alongside the proxy to bake normal maps. Of course this will only useful for the part of the body that will be visible.

If you have suggestions for a new proxy, always welcome.

[Bo Orsini]

If you have suggestions for a new proxy, always welcome.

Perhaps the original Second Life base mesh as proxy would be very nice. Then we can probably use the original second life clothing templates and skins which are used now. Because creating a new skin for this MH body is looooads of work, even with the textures provided. A bump map and shader would be nice to start with. Unless I overlooked something?

[robertltux]

trying to rip the SL base mesh from the client would be a nightmare. if you have any advise on colors that would be great

[Bo Orsini]

trying to rip the SL base mesh from the client would be a nightmare. if you have any advise on colors that would be great

I can export all 3 used UV Maps directly from the SL Base Mesh template if that is what you need?

[orindoomhammer]

I wasnt exactly talking about second life actually more along the lines of other game engines but you can find the sl base mesh on the sl wiki or at least a quick google search at any rate. the low poly base mesh poses some adittional problems as well simply because it has too few polys and would require the same amount of work to get it to the right place as well. I am talking about a more simplistic base mesh not so much fewer polys just more emphisis on deformation in the joints less loops that spiral around the mesh, as an example this is what i am trying to explain. this would lighten the load a bit on those wishing to use the characters for game related things.

again I'm just talking about simplifying the geometry for smoother deformations.

[duststorm]

So both ascottk and forsaken proxies are not good for the joint animations you need?

If you want, you can create a new proxy, for example by starting from one of the proxies or by retopoing the original basemesh yourself. The good thing is, once you create a proxy from it using the makeProxy script you can reuse it as many times as you want. It's work you only have to spend once.
If you would like to share the proxy to be included in MH that would also be appreciated a lot

Otherwise, if you don't feel up to creating a proxy yourself, maybe you could give more detailed information about what you want exactly and how the current proxies do not suit your needs. Who knows, if an artist has the time...
I'm interested in what exactly you need from the proxy to be useable for your purposes.

I experimented with animating the ascottk proxy mesh with the "game" skeleton, this is what it looks like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnCNknsX ... el&list=UL

I made this demo with it: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2538

Is this the quality you are looking for or does it not suit your needs?
What is the polycount you are aiming at?

[orindoomhammer]

yeah well it was just a suggestion. are there any places i can find a proxy building tutorial? and do i need to use blender? either way it was just an idea i thought would help some people out. if your wondering more about what im looking for im looking for removing the genitalia and nipples as for most games they are not really needed. also cleaning up the mesh to remove all the modeled in musculature as a texture/normal map would be better suited for gaming. cleaning up the areas around the leg > hip so it bends right when you raise the leg to be horizontal you don't get the funky bits in the leg where the crotch meets the leg. keeping it around 5-7k polys for the body and well not so worried about the head it looks fine.
with the tutorial for the proxy i could probably just make my own and seeing as how i would only need to do it once that would be a good thing. One question though what is the significance of the proxy? how does it affect the high poly mesh?

[duststorm]

what is the significance of the proxy? how does it affect the high poly mesh?

A proxy serves as an alternative mesh for the basemesh. The same features that are offered on the basemesh can be applied to the proxy: targets, rigging, clothes, Uv map and textures, ... without any extra steps required.
A proxy does not influence the basemesh, it's actually the other way around. When creating a proxy the vertices of the proxy are matched to those of the original basemesh. This way, the same targets can also be applied on the proxy.
You don't need blender to create a proxy mesh, you can use any 3D modeling tool to create a proxy that approximates the MH basemesh. You need a tool to match the proxy to the basemesh, however (create the proxy), and for that there is a blender script. You could model a proxy in another package, export to .obj and import in blender, then create the proxy.