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#1 02/21/08 21:02

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Oni-flavored Spartan

So, about this mini-project of ours. Here's the model:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/18378/3d-model … asterchief
(Note the "Usage Rights: Limited use with credits")

Here's where it comes from (a site called Linefour):
http://www.linefour.com/acatalog/3DHaloMasterchief.html
Note that it's the only free character model on this site.
Also note that the legalese on the site are rather fuzzy.
I might mail the guy later on, or then again maybe not.

What's important for us is that it's not ripped from Halo.
So we can use it in Oni as long as we keep it low profile.

Now, little summary about the character's "destination" again:

The helmet is obviously similar to that of TCTF SWAT ("Lion").
Which would make him appropriate as a TCTF or WCG trooper.

However, his armor is much heavier that anyone's at the TCTF.
Actually, his armor is very similar to Mukade's. Full body armor.
So, it would make sense for him to be either enhanced or slow.
Enhanced is possible if he's part of the less-official WCG army.
(surely Griffin's TCTF troops are not allowed to be cyborgs?)
Enhanced is also possible if he's part of the shadow front BGI.
(but then we'll lose the connection with the familiar helmet)

So I would pose him as a unit of the WCG's never-seen army.
Of course other, better suggestions may arise along the way.

About the textures: he has a nice logo space on his back.
Rockstar has a WCG logo, but we may make a new one.

About the meshes: I suggest using Mukade as an example.
It includes a basic skeleton with all the positions and rotations.
That way you'll see how the bones are split, capped, and oriented.
http://geyser.oni2.net/edition/spartan/mukade.zip
EDIT: Now also includes a .dae (Collada) version.

EDIT2:
Blender is known to misinterpret a lot of formats
(the animations for Collada, other stuff for OBJ).

Last edited by geyser (02/26/08 19:02)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#2 02/24/08 14:02

Malsah
Member
From: Sheffield,England
Registered: 02/23/08

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

sounds intresting. Personally i think the master cheifs suit would make a good Sergeant or Corporal type character for the TCTF or WCG. remember Bungie made both these game, and you can see te the similarities if you look for them. maybe he is from a military version of the TCTF. i dunno, you know more about ONI's storyline than me!

have you any thoughts on his fighting style??

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#3 02/24/08 15:02

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

"you can see te the similarities if you look for them" Indeed, especially for this character.

"have you any thoughts on his fighting style?" We have yet to define how agile he will be.

He wears more armor than Mukade. Either he's "super" and then he can be ninja-fury-like.
Or he's not too enhanced and then he'll be more like a SWAT-Elite-Tanker kind of fighter.

I don't really think we can author a good-looking new set of animations by summer...
We can, however, pick from the existing move sets and maybe add a few new moves.
We've already demonstrated that Oni's animations can be recombined in "fresh" ways.

For a start I think he'll be a good counterpart for the Elite Strikers, and then we'll see.
They will almost certainly have good firepower and teamwork (communication, alarm).


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#4 02/24/08 16:02

Malsah
Member
From: Sheffield,England
Registered: 02/23/08

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

he doesn't seem to be the most agile character ive seen. i would think he would only be  the same as a SWAT or the Elite, but stronger.

in terms of fighting style, i would say make him a great grappler(SWAT), good puncher n crappy kicker (striker/tanker).  maybe elite specials, however unique special would be cool. it'll be intresting how this turns out

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#5 02/24/08 18:02

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

You're welcome to suggest a full collection of combos and throws right here (preferably in a single post).
While drawing from Elite/SWAT/Striker/Tanker movesets, our set can be more complete than all of them.
(most characters only have punch-throws, well the Spartan can have a whole lot of kick-throws as well)
As for unique specials, just suggest an existing substitute while mentioning the need for a better one...


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#6 02/26/08 13:02

Malsah
Member
From: Sheffield,England
Registered: 02/23/08

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

ok, thanx.  i dont have enougth time to make it now, but i'll see what i can do smile

problem though, i don't currantly have a copy of the game.  i can see the SWAT and Elite moves from the GIF's from the OniGalore site, but i am missing the Tanker moves.  is there any other places where i could get the moves from?

still, i'm glad to be of help smile

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#7 02/26/08 14:02

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

We try to stay legit and encourage people to rip content from their own version of Oni (or just play it in the case of the animations).
GIFs are pretty much the best we can do to "show" what the moves are like without redistributing massive amounts of Oni's content.
There are Tankers in the demo (DemOni) though (chapter 4), and also in Konoko Payne, so you may consider downloading these 2.
http://www.codercorner.com/KonokoPayne_ … y_2008.rar
http://geyser.oni2.net/demoni/demoni.exe


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#8 02/26/08 15:02

Malsah
Member
From: Sheffield,England
Registered: 02/23/08

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

k, thanx smile

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#9 02/26/08 16:02

EL
Member
From: Simi Valley, CA
Registered: 01/25/07

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

Malsah wrote:

he doesn't seem to be the most agile character ive seen. i would think he would only be  the same as a SWAT or the Elite, but stronger.

Like Barabas mb? big_smile


elgamercarduj3.jpg

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#10 02/26/08 16:02

Malsah
Member
From: Sheffield,England
Registered: 02/23/08

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

EL wrote:
Malsah wrote:

he doesn't seem to be the most agile character ive seen. i would think he would only be  the same as a SWAT or the Elite, but stronger.

Like Barabas mb? big_smile

yeah, im thinkin along those lines

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#11 02/26/08 18:02

owldreamer
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/15/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

Hi

@ geyser
Just checked the mukade file. Why is the skeleton a polygonal mesh? Is it a dummy?
Could you reimport this mesh in obj format? E.g. with higher polygon count and more detailled?

Best Regards

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#12 02/26/08 19:02

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

@ bunch'o'flooders:
Barabas's armor is a somewhat different story. I'd like to put a helmet on top of it and call it a BGI enforcer (an illegal paramilitary corps that inspired Muro's Strikers).
As for the Spartan, I'd make him more agile than Elites or Barabas, meaning that his suit is not just armor, but a high-tech power suit. Sorta like Bubblegum Crisis...
Of course, it's also possible that he'll stay a human tank, relying primarily on heavy firepower (like a big machine gun). That would be more like the Jin-Roh brigades.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin-Roh:_The_Wolf_Brigade
http://www.santaquiteria.net/wp-content … in-Roh.jpg

@ owldreamer:

The pseudoskeleton is my very personal contribution to the OBJ format smile
OBJ normally doesn't support skeletons, so this was my own workaround.
My exporter generates those extra triangles and places them as needed.

I'm about to take that standard a bit further by actually reimporting that.
(using the pseudoskeleton to decompose any pose into 19 bone meshes)
But then I'd be doing double work if you consider Neo's Collada import...
Most probably, my OBJ importer will be reserved for bone-swapping etc.
(combining existing bone meshes into lots of new-looking characters)

Iritscen started a thread recently about polygon splitting. Here it is:
http://oni.bungie.org/community/forum/v … php?id=392
Note what I said about much higher poly count killing performance.
It's probably OK to split every polygon in 4, for an "überhigh" LOD.
Oni allows for 5 LODs, but two or three of those are often the same.


On another note, I'd rather if you kept this thread dedicated to the Oni-flavored Spartan smile
However, I'll make an exception for Mukade since their armor has so much in common wink
BTW, here he is exported as Collada: http://geyser.oni2.net/edition/spartan/mukade.zip
(the previously uploaded OBJ is still included in this archive, as well as all the textures)


To answer your second question: no, we can't import full characters from OBJ.
OniSplit lets one import single meshes as OBJ (weapons, cutscene objects, etc)
For the record, Neo is against hackish tricks such as my pseudoskeletized OBJ.
That's why he's going for Collada and is not considering character OBJ import.
My mini-importer might fill that gap in the meantime, if I make it soon enough.

Also, there's is always the possibility of importing the 19 meshes as separate OBJ.

Last edited by geyser (02/26/08 19:02)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#13 02/27/08 10:02

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

geyser wrote:

OniSplit lets one import single meshes as OBJ (weapons, cutscene objects, etc)

Also, there's is always the possibility of importing the 19 meshes as separate OBJ.

Right, I was going to ask about this: when I get the time again soon to resume work on improving the models of the key characters, I'll be mainly working on the heads.  Can I import just, say, Griffin's head to see it in Oni?  I'm still fuzzy on how the importing in OniSplit works (well, the TXMP side of things is clear to me, I mean OBJs).


Check out the Anniversary Edition Seven at ae.oni2.net!

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#14 02/27/08 10:02

owldreamer
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/15/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

IC

thought something like that was the case with the bones smile
I`ll check your polygon splitting thread soon

About the spartan flavour - there's not that much to change. The texture size is really smal including dpi sad
And if you change the mesh you have to start from scratch with the textures.

Adapting the similar-halo-character to ONI character structure will take some time cause I have to add polygons in order to close the gaps which will appear when the model is cut into pieces...

fo far

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#15 02/27/08 12:02

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

"And if you change the mesh you have to start from scratch with the textures."
Unless you delete vertices, UVs for existing faces shouldn't be messed up at all.
Also note that, e.g., Oni's ninja bot uses the same one texture for all the bones.
So it's totally OK if the Spartan has one big UV map and then you split him up.

"The texture size is really smal including dpi" I'm not  sure what you mean here.

"I have to add polygons in order to close the gaps which will appear when the model is cut into pieces"
Well, gaps can only appear when the character starts to move and flex at the joints. Look at Mukade.
What's needed is some really simple "caps", either half-spheres or extruded bands with a flat cover.


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#16 03/02/08 09:03

owldreamer
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/15/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

Hi

masterchief2-1.jpg

As you can see I tried to adapt the character to ONI character setup - split it to 18 pieces, covered the holes to ensure blending and renamed each body part.
Created two files: obj and 3ds - you can download them here

If no one detects mistakes i could try to create uv-maps for each body part...

@ geyser
forget that about dpi - ìt was a logical error on my side sad

edit1: I corrected the upper two "LR"s to "R"

Last edited by owldreamer (03/02/08 09:03)

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#17 03/02/08 14:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

Thanks already. There might be a little more work to do, but we're almost there.

"18 pieces" - a compromise between 17secs's die-hard 17 and the actual 19? big_smile
The basic split-up is OK, but the capping has to be revised a little. Here's why.

(BTW, whatever you call "blending"...)

The problem with such a multi-part rigid mesh is that triangles never ever stretch.
Animations just make the bones rotate with respect to each other around the joints.
The amplitude of the rotations can be quite large (often well over 90° in Oni). So?

Try imagine the knees and elbows of that character flexing at more than 90°.
With the little pyramidal caps you set up, a crack will appear on the outside
(on the inside, the bones will interpenetrate, which is good-looking enough).
So, obviously, you have to make those flat pyramids look more like domes.
Domes centered on the joint will make a flexed elbow/knee look like a ball.
This is exactly how it's done for Oni's characters (go look at Mukade again).

Now let's have a look at the odd shoulder bone (keep looking back at Mukade, BTW).
Try and imagine what will happen to it when the character raises an arm sideways...
The thin slice you've made will look bad for any orientation other than a neutral pose.
It would look much better if instead of the thin slice you had a ball of same diameter.
The ball will overlap a lot with both the chest and the arm, but that's not a problem.
What's important is that it will always bridge the gap between the chest and arm.
Actually, a sphere in the "armpit" may look weird for the more extreme animations...
E.g., Mukade uses a capsule (sphere-capped cylinder) going from the neck to the arm.
Like I told you before, this capsule is the usual shoulder bone used by all Oni chars.

That's pretty much all the issues there are: elbows, knees, shoulders.
The rotations at the other joints are typically much less extreme.

Still, don't be afraid to make, e.g., head/neck/chest/mid/pelvis overlap a lot more.
Otherwise you'll have gaps everywhere whenever the character bends "too much".
As for the feet and fists, again, try think of an extreme orientation: is there a gap?
And look back at the overlaps for Mukade's fists and fists as you rationalize yours.

For the feet and fists, make sure that the joint is a good-looking pivot for rotation.

Last (and sorta least), your OBJ has a lot of flipped polygons that you'll want to fix.
I suppose triangle orientation is not relevant to you in your program, but it is to us.
(actually, though, Oni uses the normals to cull the faces, just like your program)
(but it's good taste to have vertices listed counter-clockwise for all triangles smile )
(otherwise the model will look bad in any viewer that uses backface culling)

Last edited by geyser (03/02/08 14:03)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#18 03/02/08 14:03

owldreamer
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/15/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

IC

Don't worry about normals going the wrong direction, for some reason I simply forgot to recalculate all polygon normals...it`s as simple as to press a button - grmf....

As for the cappings - creating something like a dome is possible but the polygon count will rise up (I simply tried to be minimalistic :-) )
The shoulder will be the most problematic part, for me that was clear from the beginning - I`ll see what I can do...
Will upload an updated version and mention it here...

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#19 03/02/08 14:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

"The shoulder will be the most problematic part, for me that was clear from the beginning"

Well, Seventeen Seconds was right to point that out to you as the "only" issue right away.
Still, it's really no big deal. Like I said, making the slice a sphere is already good enough.

Don't worry about the poly count of the arms and legs. They're decently low-poly now.
And of course we don't want geospheres... Just something more round than a pyramid.
Have a look at some of the original joints: extruded and tapered cylinders everywhere.
So the half-spherical caps on each bone are just a correct way to think of the problem.
We want there to be a roughly ball-shaped intersection at knees & elbows at all times.

About the poly count. The head and chest are the meshes that have the most vertices.
They also have a few "decals" that we'll obviously want to replace with textured detail.
The vertex count of the individual meshes right now is Oni-compliant (<2048 / bone).

If we want to fight several such guys at once, we'll have to work on lower LODs later.
(it's a bit of work, but basically you just try and merge/retriangulate groups of polys)

Last edited by geyser (03/02/08 14:03)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#20 04/10/08 21:04

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

owldreamer: I imported your Masterchief into 2 different programs and in both the model looks odd:

MCmodel.jpg

Any ideas?

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#21 04/11/08 14:04

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

I figured it out, I had to "flip normal" on the black triangles.

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#22 04/11/08 17:04

owldreamer
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/15/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

Yep - although it`s a little strange cause I thought that I did recalibrate the normals...hm...

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#23 04/13/08 09:04

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

owldreamer:  I need some help with the Masterchief.  Since I'm a newbie at 3D, I don't know how to fix the model.
pelvis: There are 2 holes in it, one at the top and one at the area where it connects to the thigh. Also, at the bottom are sections that are not triangles. They look like triangles overlapping other triangles, that results in the surface not being a triangle. (Does that make sense? The reason I say this, is that in Cheetah3D, when I hover over a non-triangle, it shows the triangle extending under another triangle.  Sorry, I don't know the correct terms.)

chest: Towards the top there are sections that are not triangles, Oni will not import a geometry that is not all triangles.
mid: There appears to ba a gap towards the back.

I'm getting close to importing the Masterchief into Oni, but these geometries will not import with these issues.

Thanks

Last edited by EdT (04/13/08 10:04)

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#24 04/13/08 11:04

owldreamer
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/15/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

I made a little update:
Get it here

I closed the two holes and triangulated the pelvis part and chest part.
The mid part - there were two polygons hovering over the actual polygons, don`t know why - I deleted them.

I also fixed the normals problem - hopefully - and worked on a few joints (not all of them but some).
Give it a try smile

Best Regards

Last edited by owldreamer (04/13/08 11:04)

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#25 04/14/08 00:04

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Oni-flavored Spartan

Thank you, will play with it tomorrow.  Also, I can import .fbx files, in fact, that's what Cheetah3D recommends.

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