I'm Making Low-Poly Rigged 3D DF Character Models. What Should I Keep in Mind?

[westingtyler]

tl;dr If i'm trying to make fully-custom low poly mecanim-rigged and textured character models for Daggerfall in Blender, what should I keep in mind?

proj dfu noc.PNG (957 KiB) Viewed 1583 times

Hello. I'm a gamedev working on my own projects (#NotSSgame on my web site) and since one of my dreams is to play Daggerfall Unity with 3d character models instead of "flats", one side project I'm working on is making 3d rigged models for Daggerfall in the hopes someone can eventually implement the 3d models in a mod. this modeling will take an unknown amount of time since I jump between projects a lot, and my hope is to get experience modeling characters to improve, and to be able to use some of the more generic medieval characters I make, for my own games.

I'm modeling and texturing about 60 male, and about 60 female rigged character models in Blender (and about 30 monsters, as well as Ultima VI characters and monsters thrown in for good measure). Recolored versions could easily happen later, as needed (I'll post a gallery or video showcasing them all and asking for reference image for ones I missed.) I plan on making a single character rig containing all the idles animations, which could be applied to any of the characters in Unity. (as a side note, any reference gifs/images/videos/frame count info for all these idles, would make this part easier.) Using mecanim rigs will also mean that any other mecanim animations could be applied to any model, thereby surpassing one of the limits of pixel-based animations for the flats characters.

I'm doing a low poly style somewhere between Thief Gold and Code Veronica for Dreamcast. so it's higher-poly than Playstation 1, but not by much. Very Morrowind, but a bit lower poly. I'm going to texture them as well, each with a 1024x1024 texture map. the will not have non-color maps (normal, ambient occlusion, shine, bump, etc.) the texture maps may start simple, but could be further painted or upscaled later by me or others to add detail.

I have a little experience modeling. I am making these characters to be rigged with Rigify in Blender and mecanim-compatible in Unity. I have base meshes i've made for a female and a male, and they are about 1700 triangles each, with "static" faces. as in, no real eyes or mouth or edge loops, as per the style, though I'm trying to keep decent topology around bending areas. keeping them in this relatively simple style (as opposed to modern hi-poly style with separate eyes, facial blendshapes, etc.) will help me get them done this century and also personally feels more apt for Daggerfall in my heart of hearts. the models will have default bone weights for now. the attached image does not contain individual fingers, but the base models will have individual fingers soon. the male is 5'8", and the female is 5'4", the average adult heights in the US.

so these will be mecanim-ready rigged character models. is there anything I should keep in mind not mentioned here, to ensure these can be best used in a Daggerfall Unity 3d npcs mod in the future? also, based on the attached image, are there things I can improve about the base mesh topology? Any feedback will be helpful, since the earlier I know these potential pitfalls, the better all these billion kajillion models will be. It would really suck to make 150 rigged models, then someone is like "you needed to do it in X format for us to use these smh." my instincts say that as long as they are rigged for mecanim with decent topology and reasonable triangle counts, that they should be pretty universally useful, but there may be something I'm missing since I'm somewhat new to character modeling. I've been modeling simple stuff since 2015 ish, and I LOVE modeling in Blender but have mostly done setpieces and landscapes, and few character attempts so far.

I'm new to this forum but have checked it occasionally. I've seen people wish and talk about this kind of thing but am not aware of a full-fledged project yet. if a similar project is already underway, or if there are guidelines somewhere, let me know so I can learn more and improve.

thank you for reading and have a nice day. and get hyped for when this is done in about 1,000 years.

[chtujo]

I'm not an artist so I can't help much, but your reference images seem to be screenshots. It might be benificial to instead extract the original sprites using DF Imaging 2. It's one of Interkarma's older programs, you can find it on the site here.

[westingtyler]

thanks for the heads up. I got Daggerfall Imaging and extracted the images. Having clear pixels will definitely make it easier to be sure what I am seeing and need to model as well as helping me use accurate colors for texturing. it also helped me locate a bunch of npcs I was missing.

[charlieg]

I would check out this effort too:
viewtopic.php?t=5400

Could be room for collaboration or at least discussion on style/technique.

EDIT: oh wait, you've already posted a reply in there!

[westingtyler]

yeah, totally! those Nine models are pretty good, so I gave them the atlases I've compiled as well in case they may be of use to them or others. Their models will probably be higher quality than mine since I'm going for a PS1/Dreamcast quality level for practical reasons, which will be a bit lower-poly, but I am curious to see the quality level I can reach with practice. Once my whole set exists, it would be nice for me to go back and bring up the individual quality level of the models I make, but who knows.

[Ninelan]

I'm open to consulting 3D modelling chitchat, but collabs with vastly different styles usually don't end up well aesthetically.
It should be noted that, while yes 3D projects did go down under more often than not and more people working on it would really mean completion would be faster and if someone goes poor another can pick it up, have some trust that a single person can run a project from start to finish else everyone would need to agree to a single style and even that's something the players/audience do not agree on either.


Regardless.
I eagerly await updates on this project of yours. There are a lot of people out there, each unique in their own way, but thankfully plenty share assets that you can repurpose for one another. At least if you're into chimeric modelling like me, where recycling old stuff is king.

Also on returning quality, I suggest to just make them as you imagine them and turn that version into the very best thing for that detail level. While a single model can easily be a target for retreading, I advise against this on such a large scale. Sure once you already have something retreading it is easier, but not at the amount we're working here at.
I have 140 asset models just for women, while the body I can retread lightly, having to up the quality of every single mesh would be a herculean task. So it is best you just make it the very best thing you can from the get-go!

[westingtyler]

yeah, totally.

I tend to have bursts of desire to work on a side project, and it lasts a week, then I move onto other side projects, so working where others rely on me to be timely, usually hasn't gone well in the past, so i tend to work on my own. and visually Ninelan's stuff looks nice, whereas mine may end up looking like guards from Thief Gold for all I know (a style I actually like.)

And yeah, about making the models good the first time around, because going back and improving them would be a whole project in itself. I am not currently planning on doing a second pass on the characters, and that's so far away I don't even think about it. that's part of why I'm being patient to get feedback and tips on my models and the process before I start, because it's gonna suck when I model 150 characters then someone is like "oh, the way you modeled those fingers, that won't work in Unity and will crash the game due to the "floating point tribunal rounding quaternion framework." then I have to go through 150 models and replace and retexture the hands. I'm doing my best to avoid that, haha.

But yeah, I went through Daggerfall Imaging 2 and gathered all the flats, and now I'm more confident I am not missing any, so once I'm confident in my basemesh topology, I'll be working some.

But my brain is so finicky, and for all I know I'll do 10 and then shift onto another side projects for a year before returning ot this one, so it will be a slow process, but it's something i really want to do for the modeling practice and to have the models exist for Daggerfall, and to be able to repurpose some for use in my own games, with my original style, models, and textures.

[westingtyler]

Rough NPC Attempt:



Are there things I should keep in mind as I move forward making the NPCs? are there mistakes I made here I could improve upon? please give feedback so I can get even better! Any tips are valid, even regarding the base mesh or uvs or texture layout, which may not be final.

notice the colors are slightly blue. this is because i was sampling the sprite image colors while "fade inactive geometries" was turned on, making the sprite slightly blue, so the sampled colors have a blue tint. a strange blender feature. I've since turned that off, so colors should be more accurate moving forward.

also I have NO clue how to start making the hair, so any tips would help me a lot.

[westingtyler]

Now I have tried to do some low-poly hair. Is there a better way? I did it in 4 chunks.

[westingtyler]

I've refined the female base mesh geometry, adding edge loops and such, and i've tested it with automatic weighting for the rig, which is good enough until all the models are existing and textured and rigged. the female base mesh is about 5,000 triangles total, not including hair or accesseries per npc character/enemy.

should I move this thread to Creator's Corner, since it will become less technical and more about 3d asset creation than mod implementation at this point? i am new to this forum, so I am not sure, but either way is cool, whatever fits it best.