PoHa!'s First 3D Creature

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:17 am

[Edit]Most updated pics on 2nd page[[/Edit]

The subject says it. PoHa! decided to try his hand at making a 3D creature, and after several hours of working, and almost being late for class, I've got this so far:

[url=http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/Worm2.jpg][img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/Worm2.jpg[/img][/url]

And, without the texture:

[url=http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/WormNoTexture.jpg][img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/WormNoTexture.jpg[/img][/url]

currently I believe its at 1616 polys... and I couldn't get that blasted body texture to skin the way I wanted exactly...

In any case, I need some help deciding upon what to make the eyes look like. I was thinking maybe feelers, or small slits, but I'm open to suggestion...

Ah, and in the event that I get this to look good, might it fit in TR?

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:38 am

Cute...

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:41 am

Wasn't there some concept art for a cave worm that this could work as?
Wait a minute... didn't I draw the concept art for the cave worm?
Anyways, memory lapses aside, I think stalks would work best for the eyes.

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:43 am

It could be the larval form of some rather mean bug. I think it looks nice.

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:46 am

Hmm... I don't think the images do it justice... I was trying to figure out if it was too big or too small, so I imported the "vermai" mesh, and discovered that the worm's "tusk" is about as long as a vermai's arm, and the worms head is larger than its torso...

Got it to not resize one...

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:14 am

Creatures of that size don't do well for many reasons. I suggest you resize it to be no longer than 90 units ( a little over four feet)

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:44 am

Err... yeah... I thought so... If I can figure out how big 90 units is in Milkshape, then I'll be good...

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:04 am

Well, figure out how many units it is now and do the math. Or just make it four feet if you can do that..

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:07 am

I alwys got the impression each little grid increment was one unit. The ones that appear when you are zoomed in fully in Milkshape...

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:17 am

Hey Vernon: does he still look cute?

[url=http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/Worm3.jpg][img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/Worm3.jpg[/img][/url]

Haj · Post by **Haj** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:24 am

Four feet!! Four freaking feet! Here we have the opportunity to have a new little cave bug, something with a nasty little nip and the capability to poison, and you want to make it up to four fucking feet long? What is it with you kids ... size isn't everything. If he makes this bastard 4 feet long, nobody is going to use it except as a very rare and random beastie. Size isn't everything - it's too chunky to be big.

No man ... no. If anyone is going to use this thing, make it much smaller, like six inches (what's that, about 10 units?) and sprinkle the little buggers in little concentrations around infested caves.

Give the PC a "please clean out my [insert interior] of an [insert creature] infestation" type quest ... talk about your nasty surprises, there will be dozens of these little bastards about and they all give a tiny poisonous bite ... and the NPC who gives the quest offers a paltry sum in return. Sort of a "let's rip off the PC quest".

PoHa ... your beastie is great, really great and dont change a thing, but only if it is SMALL!

... and call it a poha, while you're at it.

Haj

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:31 am

Four ingame feet is a very reasonable size and fits with this thing. Only a bit larger than a kwama.

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 7:43 am

[img]http://img378.imageshack.us/img378/8619/128units8pp.jpg[/img]

Haj · Post by **Haj** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:27 am

@Sload. Four feet is too long, it would look stupid if it was that big. Take it from a trained biologist, this is actually a very good rendition of something quite small. Blind, big mouth, big teeth ... relative to a small body ... something that you could get a close look at only after you killed it. Besides, if it was small and hard to see in a cave that would add way more to the fear factor than something honking big. I think it should be about 35 units long max, about the length of the orc's forearm.

I think this is worth a vote.

Haj

Jacurutu · Post by **Jacurutu** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:31 am

I agree with Haj . . . if you can, I'd make that thing an angry little bug, not an angry big bug. I immediately thought "predatory caterpillar" when I saw it

Gez · Post by **Gez** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 10:30 am

Remember that little things tend to be oversized in Morrowind for gameplay reasons (use third person view next time you walk near flowers or mudcrabs).

If it's too tiny, it'll be a pain to fight. And to loot once it's made into a corpse.

Haj · Post by **Haj** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 11:14 am

Kwama forager ... Scrib ... that's the sort of size we are talking about ... approx 35 units. What sort of loot are you thinking about? Poha jelly?

Haj

ThorFluff · Post by **ThorFluff** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 12:33 pm

i have one itsy bitzy complaint/suggestion

the mandibles shouldn't be like that! they'r cool n well done n all, but look useless
[img]http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y33/ThorDUDE/Mandibles.jpg[/img]

try to make it like that, so that the critter could actually hold on to something while chewing.
should be Forager sized, bigger will only look too lumpy.
Good work all in all!

Post by **Swiftoak** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 2:19 pm

What program did you use PoHa?

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 3:07 pm

My! I didn't think my creature would start an argument... Let's see...

@Haj: Thanks for the compliments and ideas. Calling it a "poha" is most likely out, seeing as the spinning head of that cartoon character that I made is "PoHa!" and I think people would get confused. Actually, though, I think it still needs work. The body segments seem to spherical (actually, that's what they are) and it has no feelers or other sort of sensory perception (even though it currently resembles what you were referring to. I don't suppose you could post a pic of that thing, could you?). And... PoHa! jelly? lol...

@Vernon: Thanks, that pic might help with resizing it...

@Thorfluff: Ah, yes, that does kinda make sense... I'll see what I can do...

@SwiftOak: I used Milkshape for the mesh, and Photoshop for the texture.

Hmm... after some arguing, it seems the generally acceptable size would be the size of a kwama, or slightly larger? If not, let me know.

Anyways, before I started, I had an idea for a large worm (not quite as large as it is right now, though) with fern-like feelers on top of his head. It stayed burrowed underground with the feelers above ground. When the player gets close, suddenly it jumps up and starts chomping! I kinda doubted it would be lore-friendly, doable, and/or acceptable however.

Stalker · Post by **Stalker** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 3:24 pm

PoHa! wrote: Anyways, before I started, I had an idea for a large worm (not quite as large as it is right now, though) with fern-like feelers on top of his head. It stayed burrowed underground with the feelers above ground. When the player gets close, suddenly it jumps up and starts chomping! I kinda doubted it would be lore-friendly, doable, and/or acceptable however.

Do-able - yes. Lore-friendly or acceptable - doubt it.

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 3:59 pm

Haj, Morrowind has big bugs. It's what their animals are. Tiny bugs would just be a bad idea because they're, well, tiny. Besides, this has 1,616 faces. We can't very well have a lot of little swarms of these.

However, if scribs and kwama are only 35 units then I think cutting it down to 50 units makes sense. 10 units, however, would be ridiculous.

Post by **Swiftoak** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:12 pm

It could be used for some other province like Black Marsh, maybe it would be more lore-friendly in the marshes of Argonia, or the jungles of Cyrodil.

Dexter · Post by **Dexter** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 4:28 pm

I say make it the size of a scrib. Yeah, Morrowind has big bugs, but this isn't really the Nix-Hound insectoid type of bug that Morrowind has. It's much more small and larval.
As for the polycount, there is a lot he can do to bring it down, such as making the body pieces have less faces.
For the mandibles, the way they are now is fine. When this thing is animated, they can be changed to point inwards.

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:34 pm

I agree, about the size of a scrib or kwama forager would seem right. And the polycount will likely be harder to reduce since it has already been textured. If you can get the polycount right down though, a smaller creature would better as you could then put them in a group. Pretty damn quick work, though. How long did this take you?

You know, a nice glow map will look awesome on this. If you make part of the body texture an alpha map, the transparent parts could glow. You could even make the whole body texture full of tiny transparent holes and then put the glow map in the holes. :D

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 5:49 pm

I figure that I should actually comment on the creature itself instead of obsessing over it's size.

I love it, for eyes I personally think it'd be cool for it to just have four eyes on it's head, sort of like to lame image below

Code: Select all

@ = eye

 @--@
@----@
->vv<-

My only complaint is the body texture. It has the same scar going all the way down the body, is it possible to have variation on that scar?

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:12 pm

@Stalker: That's kinda what I figured...
but damned if that wouldn't scare the hell out of you, to just be walking along and suddenly hear a screech and see a freaking big worm in front of you. Oh well, another idea for another time...

@Dexter: Thanks for the mandible tip

@Vernon: The texture is pretty much just what I could come up with in a quick amount of time so's I could see what it would look like with a texture (I was actually going back and forth between Photoshop and Milkshape while making this), so if I have to completely reset the texture, that shouldn't be to hard. Tedious, but not hard.
It took a quite a few hours yesterday. I probably started around 3pm, and finished what I have sometime around midnight, I think, with about an hour-long class interupting it. 8-9 hours?
The glow map sounds good, but I've not the slightest clue of how to do it.

@Sload: Love your lame image... I think I understand what you mean. The scar going all the way down is due to the single texture that I made for the body. Once I get a little more aquainted with Milkshape, I'll work on the textures more, and see if I can't figure out a better way to do them...

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Thu Aug 25, 2005 6:29 pm

Personally I think a foot long would be good, and also the coming out of the ground/walls is a good idea.

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 2:40 am

Oye! It took me forever to figure out how to correctly use the alpha mapping stuff... and to figure out that my toned down version of photoshop doesn't save .tga's with transparencies correctly... and then to finally get the blasted thing to work in Milkshape... Hmm... I guess I also got rid of some unnessescary polys when I first started, but still not enough.

I put some feelers on it, but I don't really like them... maybe he'll look better with eyes...

[url=http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/Worm4.jpg][img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/Worm4.jpg[/img][/url]

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 3:59 am

I don't like the feelers, myself.

Haj · Post by **Haj** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 6:57 am

I agree with sload, those feelers don't look right. Be interesting to see it with eyes, even though my first instinct is that the creature is cool enough without them. Figured out a name for it yet?

Haj

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:15 am

Okay, here is my idea for this creature:

Balghen Larva - The Larval form of the Balghen bugs. They rarely venture outside their cavern nests but have a poisonous bight and are much more dangerous than their more docile cousin, the kwama foreger.

There are two forms tha they can grow up to be (modelled by you maybe, PoHa?)

Balghen Mother - The mother creature is like an enormous Balghen Larva, except she's fat and more deadly. She's bulging with the excess of food she is fed by her family. Her tusks are much longer than the larva's. Maybe even tiny spikes on her sides.

Balghen Mig (Originally Barmig until shortened over the ages) - This kind of Balghen actually goes out of the caves an into the world, usually hunting for food. They are very different from their kin, they have wings and legs and get around by flying. Longer tusks than the Larva, but not as long as the mother's.

Discuss.

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:20 am

The "feelers" might do with a 'thickening' and definitely a change of colour (more like the rest of the body's colour?). If you take the plane you put the alpha on, you can rotate it 90 degrees to get a cross shape, making each "feeler" seem more substantial. I'd suggest using shapes instead of planes though. A couple of cylinders with elliptical ends?

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 4:25 pm

Funny you should suggest that Vernon...

I actually first created three different feelers with cylinders, but decided that they would be two high poly for such a small contribution to the worm...

These be them:

[img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/Feelers.jpg[/img]

The farthest just has a point on the end, the middle on has a flattened ellipse thing going on, and the closest one just has a sphere on the end.

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 4:58 pm

I quickly put this together to show you how it could be done. 5 sided cylinder with 3 height segments. 5 faces on base removed, with the top extruded and drawn in twice. Then shaped. 45 faces. Phallic, but it should work.

[img]http://img254.imageshack.us/img254/9853/40faces9we.jpg[/img]

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 5:40 pm

Alright, I made one similar to that. 55 faces, though:

[url=http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/NewFeeler.jpg][img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/NewFeeler.jpg[/img][/url]

And now attached two of them... [Edit]err... resized the feelers[/Edit]:

[url=http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/Attached2.jpg][img]http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/PoHaEiFor/3dModels/Attached2.jpg[/img][/url]

Vernon · Post by **Vernon** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 6:03 pm

Nice. Have you removed all of the internal faces? That will take polycount down a bit too. I also just realised the head appears to have much higher res textures than the body. Are you going to sharpen the body textures?

PoHa! · Post by **PoHa!** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 6:45 pm

Uhm... The textures for the head and body are in the same file... the texture for the head is larger, though...

As far as internal faces, do you mean those that aren't showing because they are inside another piece of the worm? If so, then no, not yet. I believe the latest polycount I did was around 2000...

[Edit]
AH! Somehow, I missed Sload's and Haj's posts completetely (sorry guys) and never even responded to them (stupid PoHa!... you're a jerk! Stop talking to yourself! Stop it!... Stop it!...STOP IT!!!).

Alright...

Those are nice ideas, Sload (did you get "Barmig" switched with the other name accidentally or did I misread?), kinda like a completely new kind of subspecies of insects... like the different kinds of kwama's.

After I work on reducing the polycount some more, I'll work on the eyes, Haj. But the poly's have become top priority for the little bugger.

Ah, and I did think some names...

-Kancret
-Higgergrete or Higger-Grete
-Wurgel
-Lavu Kur

Haj · Post by **Haj** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:12 am

meh ... maybe it don't need eyes anyway, being a cave creature, and now it has those nifty pressure sensors anyway.

Wurgel gets my vote.

Soooo ... are you encouraged to model some more? Surf around the concept art threads and see what you find (when you are done with this one of course).

Haj

Sload · Post by **Sload** » Sat Aug 27, 2005 8:20 am

PoHa! wrote:Those are nice ideas, Sload (did you get "Barmig" switched with the other name accidentally or did I misread?), kinda like a completely new kind of subspecies of insects... like the different kinds of kwama's.

...

Ah, and I did think some names...

-Kancret
-Higgergrete or Higger-Grete
-Wurgel
-Lavu Kur

Balghen actually has roots in Dunmeri. Stone is Bal, and there is no word for "bug" but "ghen" is the beginning of the word for "netch" (ghenis) so it fits for bug, this Stone Bug, a bug that lives in caves.

Tamriel Rebuilt

PoHa!'s First 3D Creature

Which habitat should this worm creature be found? (Don't judge by texture, which is subject to change)

PoHa!'s First 3D Creature