What've you skoped lately?

[windblown]

Oh! I'd love to see that. AoX Frenzy was a great design!

[SickAlice]

I looked around and don't see her, maybe I imagined it? I'm really focused on one project right now but if nothing comes up I'll tackle her in my next line. I'll at least do her AoX and black leather styles if no other reason than to do those hairstyles.

Speaking of project and hairstyles I'm currently working on a versatile Storm. I made a new mesh using INK's female and Gren/JP's hands as well I gave it three different interchangeable feet sets (flat foot, heeled and bare with toes). These can be switched on and off using the alpha channels on the female basic texture. I'm also adding a bunch of Storm costume elements but mainly focusing on hairstyles and capes for skopers. I have nine capes plotted and in progress right now, the original cape that INK included, the side capes he included but now given their own texture space and another seven designed by me either by hand or by recycling and based on her various notable cape designs. Here's a beta shots of the groundwork ongoing (today was doctor day so I'm taking a night off to rest, will resume tomorrow):

[detourne_me]

You know I'm looking forward to this one!  You've been pulling double duty to make Storm look her best I think!
Rest well, and feel better soon.

[SickAlice]

Eh. Thanks. I'm pretty cumbersome about it actually (my situation). It's just become an everyday thing. Outside the moments, especially the painful ones like being at the doctor and them well, checking things out so to speak, I'm pretty content and enjoying myself. Redundantly the illness has actually aligned my perception whereas I end comparing everything else with the affliction and the rest up ends up small and unimportant by comparison. Like the old saying " If you eat a bullfrog in the morning then nothing worse can happen to you for the rest of the day. ". Not trying to whine when I mention it. I just drop hat as I mentioned working on Storm so that others won't feel I'm neglecting other requests. This is me giving static proof that I am legitimately busy this week, another redundancy given I'm hobbled of course. Also I was save Storm as a surprise but thought since she's such a popular character I should make mention of it while I'm laying the foundation in case someone has a request I should work into it. It's foreseeable that I'm not planning on doing every costume here. I made a list of them all and I'm cherry picking which ones I think will look best and more which ones will actually add something to both the piece as well add new parts for skopers and skinners to work with in the community. In other words if anyone has a costume or idea they would like me to work into this speak up, I'll try and address it, thanks. And thank you detourne_me as well to Gren as usual for the hard work you put into on the animations for this. That's adding volumes to the overall aesthetic and overall authentic feel of the work.

[windblown]

Storm is looking great and I can't wait to see the final release! I've always loved Storm so this is a character I'm looking forward to see in action. I love the bare feet with toes detail btw.


I've been working in my Surge skope these last days and here is the result:



She has a new body type and new electric effects for her running animations. I think she looks a lot better now.

[Podmark]

Very nice Windblown, Surge looks even better now!

[detourne_me]

 :thumbup:Wow,   is the lightning similar to Tombstone's leg lightning?  I love how it follows her movements like that.

[SickAlice]

Thank you windblown. You were a definite inspiration on getting portions and attention to detail down as well as has been AA, case in point your nice Surge there.

Just finished with all the geometry, weighting,  bone sizing, mapping, base making and set-up for a secret project of mine and am now doing all the texture sets. Here is a snap of it with everything unhid. See if anyone wants to take a crack at guessing what I'm making before I get to the release.

[crimsonquill]

See if anyone wants to take a crack at guessing what I'm making before I get to the release.

Spoiler

HELLO KITTY!

- CQ

[SickAlice]

@crimsonquill: Nope. But that is one of the alt skins for it though it's something I decided to make for it, otherwise the thing normally has no association with Sanrio.

[Cyber Burn]

I was thinkin  that it may be:

Spoiler

Your Avatar

[SickAlice]

Nuh. I've though about making Homestuck characters for Freedom Force a lot though because I'm fanhard on it but I thought no one would really relate. I did make a prop for my test level of The Alchemiter from the webcomic though.

I suppose I sort of vague. It's a very popular character from some form a game. I made the character as they are but after I was done I decided to make a bunch of custom skins of my own design just for fun. Noted though that customizing that character would actually be something one would normally do with them.

[windblown]

:thumbup:Wow,   is the lightning similar to Tombstone's leg lightning?  I love how it follows her movements like that.

Yep, it's a similar effect. In fact, at first I was going to use Tombstone's leg lighting for her, but I didn't like how it turned out so I used a lighting FX instead (manowar's electric arc if I recall correctly).

[SickAlice]

That's pretty clever. I toy with the particle emitter systems from FFVTTR and try to figure out how to set one up (the ones with skin influence). I never thought to just skope one over. Then again I mostly played around with Bacchite and that one appears to be docked on the main mesh somehow. Still your knowledges never cease to amaze WB.

[windblown]

I've skoped FX on Dust, Wind Dancer, Chamber and Surge with success. Not sure what you're trying, but if you need help let me know.

Still your knowledges never cease to amaze WB.

Most of it was achieved by the trial and error method though 

[SickAlice]

That makes me feel a little less basic. Trial and error is pretty much my only method. 

I don't have any plans at this time but thanks. I spend much time researching and put a bit into taking apart the FFVTTR nifs. I'm curious why they do things a certain way and how. The Bacchite one especially. I extracted the main body model only and found it had a particle emitter welded to it. I did some research elsewhere and I don't remember how it breaks down technically but basically this is done so that the FX particles will follow the bone to skin deformations thus achieving a natural and fluid look. That was when I concluded that for the most part we do particle emitters the wrong way. Usually we attach a particle emitter, well you know to basically " space " and it sort of flies along with the biped. But in real time a character like say Human Torch, well all that fire would actually bend and flare right along with his epidermis wouldn't it. Anyways that particular subject always has my curiosity peaked at any rate. Good to know there's a fast track to analyze results.

[SickAlice]

I mentioned something earlier in this thread about how swapping can difficult sometimes due to modern meshes having a much higher face count than the standard Freedom Force model. I run into this a lot when I try and use Marvel Heroes models. What happens is when weight copying the vertices on the new model are assigned the weights from the vertices on the old model that are nearest. Of course when there's a lot more verts then they can end up being either too far away from the preferred matching vertice or closer to ones that one wouldn't really want them to follow the animations of. The end result is a ton of pinch and drag where the vertices pull in the wrong directions and it appears there's spines growing out of the mesh during animations basically. The more fluid the movement of the animation the worse that effect is, like take " pick up object " for example. I thought up a resolution though and decided I should share the idea in the open should anyone else also want to experiment with it. It's pretty straightforward, the idea is to take the original mesh and increase the face count. I'm doing this in Blender so I just open the nif as is, select the model, increase the faces (edges to smooth by this program), save the nif. In this process the new vertices also carry over the properties of their mothers automatically. Then I open the new nif and use that for weight copying instead. To make it a little simpler I'm trying to match face counts of course. With Marvel Heroes there are still a few issue aside this the main one being that the physiques do not line up at all (MH clavicles, legs, feet and neck especially are in a different position than Freedom Force and moving them deforms the mesh and makes it ugly) but it's a system at least and maybe a trick that will come in handy for other things. I'm still experimenting with this but I'll come back with results once I run a few test subjects through it.

[style]

Got bored .....The no prize goes to whoever knows where I got this look from!

[detourne_me]

Looks cool Style!
Glad to have you back and making stuff again!

I'm in the process of making my greatest skope...well for me anyhow.
I always loved this character, and now I';m confident enough in my skills to tackle Ghost Rider 2099!
https://youtu.be/zYwH-lZbJh8

It's still a WIP, I need to figure out how to add _refl and _glow files to the bike, and I should add some more keyframes.
The skin is kind of meh, but I have a few of the essential elements of GR2099's outfit, so thats cool.
I tried to do the pixelated fire from the comics, but it looks a little out of place here.

[SickAlice]

Looks amazing dm, all class. Same to you Style.

[Amazo Version 2.2]

you guys just amaze me with what you do. dm, for your fire effect, could you do what cyber burn and deanjo2000 did with wyldfyre's avatar? they did a double particle fx. maybe you could do one regular fire effect, and one pixel looking fire effect.

[Cyber Burn]

Nice Skopes guys, but I have to say, that Ghost Rider 2099 is just awesome. Looking at the video, is it safe to assume that the Refl on the Bike is locked? Is it always there, regardless of what you do with the Skin?

[detourne_me]

Amazo, great suggestion! Actually I'm a little disappointed with the look of the particle effect on his head, so I was thinking if it's possible to add an animated billboard instead. I've already put one billboard around his head, the Halo from AA's Apollo, but it's really difficult to see.

CB, both the jetbike and the chainsaw come from older meshes, without effects, but since they are linked to nodes that have a light map they have a permanent reflection (I think). I think it's just as simple as adding a niSourceTexture file to add effects.

I really want to get this done, but I've got 25 student essays that need to get marked for tomorrow morning.

[Cyber Burn]

DM, you have mail, I hope it helps.

And remember, if your grading my paper...I get an "A"! 

[SickAlice]

25 and working on a 3d model most people would think was something reserved to wizards. I allude it but I'm telling all you your an impressive bunch and so powerful. I have no doubts that if we all had the time, came together and made our own game we'd have no obstacle tall enough to stand between us and success. I can't read minds of course and none of you to mine but to me I'm always looking at all of you like one would the comic legends like Alex Ross and Jim Lee and myself like the geekanerd just wanting to follow in your footsteps. Why do we keep coming back to it? they often ask? For me it's simple, because I'm impressed and any show that tantalizes is worth another watch.

[windblown]

Great skopes guys!

I've been working lately in a new skope. And it's a complicated one, so here's a wip:


As a member of the White Queen's Hellions (the New Mutants nemeses), Tarot used her mutant powers to animate the image on her cards to do battle for her, as you can see at this video where she uses her Devil and Death cards:

Spoiler

I've set the skope to show the correct tarot card in each animation:

I guess it's a lot of work for a secondary character, but I'm still planning to add a couple more of cards projections. Let me know if you have a suggestion!

[Cyber Burn]

Wow...Just WOW!!!

That is awesome WindBlown! As for a suggestion, maybe one of the winged female Meshes for "The Lovers"?

[SickAlice]

Ditto! I mean holy wow mossy geonosis. The words escape me. You are a straight up wizard!

[Podmark]

  !!! That Tarot is incredible! Once again you've done the impossible WB!

DM excellent work on your Ghost Rider 2099, that is some amazing skoping right there.

Style, you won't be sending me a no prize because I'm not where it originated but Fury looks great!

[style]

Style, you won't be sending me a no prize because I'm not where it originated but Fury looks great!

No prob Pod here ya go!