Hah - I haven't picked up QW in like 6 months (and if you are a true QW player, you know what that REALLY feels like) - but the other day I found one-of-my-hundreds-of-backups-of-Quake-on-CD, and decided to fire it up again.

I've been well busy at Uni, but the other day I wanted to do something QW related again. I messaged a couple of guys on MSN to find out how their QW life has been treating them recently - only to hear that they, as well as popular site QWDrama seem to be having some space and leaving the QW scene. : (.


Having spoken to Wandii - yes he is still alive (as is Zedii (me :p)) - we reminisced about the good 'ol days!

QW still needs to live up to it's standards in playability and entertainment. It still does to some extent having browsed around a few servers. However, Wandii came up with some cool Hi-Res movie shots. I came up with below ready to use in a possible feature.

Movie days are always in our blood, but it's just finding the time at the moment.

The examples below demonstrate rigging up a QW Player Model in 3DS (which potentially can be done for ANY model in QW i.e. Shambler, Scrag, Zombie etc.). It took me approximately 3 hours to do a temporary rig of Player. Do bear in mind, that this rigging has been done without any fine tuning to the QW Player model.

When I have time, I'll have to go through each limb and fine tune the QW Model, against the exact parts of a human skeleton (probably about 10-12 hours work). Nevertheless, using 24Bit-Hi-Res textures, the result is quite promising, although rather rubber-man-like at the moment.


Tell me what you guys think:

Movie clip: http://www.zedii.co.uk/qw/qw_balance.mov



Movie clip: http://www.zedii.co.uk/qw/qw_banana.mov



Movie clip: http://www.zedii.co.uk/qw/qw_crazy.mov



Movie clip: http://www.zedii.co.uk/qw/qw_robot.mov




Zayd.

awesome

That is really nice dude!

qw_crazy i lol'd

some crazy shit, you should have used moo's player model tho

hey i think u used the subdivision surface for the old model for more poly.
Did u the animation with bones in the model or did u used ik solvers?

btw is it possible to do a kind of script in 3dsmax for an animation-loop? ( so if i do 2 steps for 2 meters, with loop: he will walk 1000000meters with the help of the 2-step-script)

Hey Knast.

I've taken the player.mdl from the PAK file, converted to 3DS file and mapped as a Biped Skeleton. There are are about 100 different ways in which the QW Player stands/dies/sits/kills/axes/farts in, but I chose the closest one to a standing position. The closes I found was an axe position. I removed the axe from his hand, and the gun from his back so I simply had:

_O_
|
./ \.

^ascii skillz.

I turned on Biped mode (from the after selected the origin of the skeleton - HAS to be done otherwise all movement of bones will be ignored even though 3DS Max still allows you to move the bones) and then I started mixing and mashing with the bones, changing the size, shape and position and angles to match that of the movement inside of a real human being (ensure you select the opposite bone if changing the size of one side - otherwise you'll have irregularities in the sizes of the bones (even if you forget to, it will cause Player to be quite "flat").

All the bones have to be placed within the model, except for the hands, feet and head. These should be about the size of the model. The closer/more realistic you place the bones to their appropriate position relative to Player, the better movement. With the exception of the three body parts just mentioned, all other bones should be sized to be inside about 3/4 of the model limb.

However, that's not to say the movement is perfected - as I mentioned in my previous post, there's a further "selection mode" which allows you to fine tune every bone to the model! I just happen to get quite a good skeleton so far in the Player model to move as demonstrated in my first post.

After a relatively happy infrastructure, turning off Biped mode and add a Skin modifier. Then attach all to the bones to its list. I added a classic turbosmooth modifier to the model at the very end. Note: it's much easier to map bones in a low poly model, than it is to a turbosmoothed or high poly model. Unless there's a significant difference in the realism of the model, the low-poly-model will still be my choice for rigging up. But then again, I've not really tried with a high-poly model. At the end of the day, I'd assume it'd be just more to processing when rendering (slightly better quality output I suppose), however for the purpose of what I've done so far, I've felt it's nicer to keep the "original" looks based on the original model.

Finally, not forgetting to apply the 24-bit player model texture over the model, the result is as above. It's primarily the texture which is making things look "nice".

As I said, potentially this can be done with any model, as bones can be placed and sized where-ever you like. It's just time and effort lol. I'm willing to do that.

As for the animation, that was my next step. I've using Biped Motion. I haven't dabbled with looping animations, but this can be done as you said, with footsteps. I briefly saw tutorials lying around suggesting techniques for looping bipeds. I'll attempt that.


I'm sure you can realise what this means for QW in terms of movies : ). An accurately rigged up QW {insert QW model name here} model means an infinite amount of flexible/realistic movements of that character, within a 3D environment - ideal for movies. QW Player will actually be able to move like a real human in positions he's never experienced before.

I swear you guys just thought dirty there. Stop it. Hehe, hope that helps Knast and any one else interested!

My next step might be to create a video tutorial of those steps (or a image/text based one at least).


Z.

Knast got me in the mood again tonight haha. I just did a quick loop from one movement to another to another.

Walk --> Kick --> Walk --> Walk-stop.

I attempted to dabble with the Biped skin's selection to "unflatten" the arm during animation. Bloody rock hard! I managed to do the left/right arm a LITTLE better, but that was just literally me randoming around with any vertice I could find. One day I'll find out how they really work lol. Sigh, back to Uni work.


Movie clip: http://www.zedii.co.uk/qw/qw_walk_kick.mov




Zayd.

HAHA! fkn awesome zayd ))))

)) nice!!

niceeeeeeee !!!!!

aha awesome!

quake ranger is chuck norris? omg

did it die out?

nevermind