So. Here we are. The first Challenge in the post-daglob era. I am by no means picking up the reins for all of this, but in deference to our lost friend, I'll get things started again & host this one. It's a little early, but I wanted to give everyone enough time to get back in the swing of things.
You all should know the rules by now, but just in case you don't (or have forgotten), here they are again.
Quoth the 'glob, "create some kind of Halloween content: a skin, a character, a bit of art, anything with the proper theme. The prize is the adulation of your peers. Deadline is October 31st. Post your work here so we can all see it. Have fun."
As is the tradition, I will start things off by re-posting something I actually contributed (y'all can stop clutching your pearls, I *do* occasionally create something) in a previous Challenge.
...overheard mutterings on Halloween.... "Jonah Hex can kiss my drunken arse! I make this look good!"
(https://image.ibb.co/cXSML0/DJ.jpg)
A very fitting tribute to Daglob. And a nice skin too.
I never had the time to participate in his challenges, but I was always impressed he kept them going every time.
Nice job on that. No pearl clutching, I cheated on his contests half the time and pointed out I did by using content I made for something else as well. Except Halloween, he had me tasked doing characters from The Nocturnals for him and I'd usually roll them out then as a treat. Anyways I'm in for daglob and CB for that matter then as well just for Halloween and will think up something fresh. Been thinking about them, I stopped what I was doing to work on Spider-mobile for RD initially out of obligation since it was the last request I had in my inbox from CB which itself was in care of daglob. I figure I pretty much have to finish that one to honor them.
Good job on the Jonah Hex.
I've got some Halloween items coming up - ghosts, vampires, black cats, etc... but since they're all imports and not original work I don't think they should go here - probably on the other thread I'm working on.
That is not Jonah Hex, that is my avatar skin draped on Texas jack's avatar mesh!! Blasted youngsters...
Oops..... I guess the western backdrop threw me off.
Quote from: Deaths Jester on September 20, 2021, 02:16:26 PM
That is not Jonah Hex, that is my avatar skin draped on Texas jack's avatar mesh!! Blasted youngsters...
Quote from: Randomdays on September 20, 2021, 03:22:22 PM
Oops..... I guess the western backdrop threw me off.
That would be my fault, I failed to make it clear that the only "work" I did on that skin was to plop DJ's av face onto an existing Jonah Hex skin (also not mine) and dropping it onto a background, in the spirit of putting various forum members into different Halloween outfits. I blame Mikey, after the first dozen or so he did inspired me to follow suit that year.
RD, feel free to post any Halloween items here as well. Daglob never had any firm rules about that. It's content that isn't already in the game, you're making it available, I'd say it counts just as much as some of the fun things we were posting in the theme that's clearly a kitbash & un-releasable.
Okay Panther - I'll put a few up here. But imports are easy and I don't want to spam the thread with the dozens of releases I have in mind. Hopefully others will try putting some together and we'll get some good entries to honor Daglob.
First character. I'm going to go mainly with the typical stereotype characters for the holiday.
So, first up we have a Vampire Lord, from the Fall From Heaven 2 mod for Civ4. Unclear of the original mesher and skinner since not a lot of info is given with the mod, and searching the Civ fanatics forums didn't turn up a lot of info either. Comes with a set of standard Civ4 unit kfs - run, idle, melee, melee idle, pain, and fall.
There's a couple of other vampires in the mod as well, based on a different set of kfs, but I'll leave them out of the Challenge.
RD
(https://i.postimg.cc/DfS0F3bR/vamplord.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
i have this werewolf by night done some time ago but still not released so i place it now, Hail Glob!--->download : https://files.fm/u/ptaevj98q
(https://i.postimg.cc/prn9krrH/werewolf-prev.png) (https://postimages.org/)
Very nice! Downloaded!
Two skeletons from Civ 4. The first was imported to Civ 4 from the "Fiesta Online" game by modder saibotlieh. I like this one that, with the ancient Greek warriors I had imported earlier, you could recreate the great battle at the end of the classic "Jason and the Argonauts" movie.
The second one is also from Civ 4 from the "Fall from Heaven 2" mod, but no information on who created it.
Uploaded to the keyframe import folder on the mega site I use.
Also, imported 2 more vampires from the same Civ 4 "Fall From Heaven 2" mod and packed all 3 together for upload.
All 4 use the basic Civ 4 swordsman keyframes. There was no problem with the keyframe imports, but I had to use a few tricks to get the models in.
The swordsman keyframes come with a couple of special animations - "Stretch" and "Taunt", plus 3 complete set of combat groups, each made of a melee, melee idle, pain, and fall. You could set different groups up with renaming for individual creatures to give them some variety.
Also, the Vampire Lord is based off the Civ 4 unique unit, "Sumarian Vulture", which has the basic set of kfs mentioned above, but it can also use the expanded swordsman kfs, and those are included in its folder for alternate kfs.
RD
(https://i.postimg.cc/xTXQDp8v/bones.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
These are really cool, RD!
Sick! :thumbup:
EDIT: Great Werewolf, too, Nait! Looks awesome!
Doing a little more testing on them since I got a report of issues with them in game. Testing the two new skeletons and vampires, they move about in game and can attack map items, and they can take damage, but when they're set up as enemies you can't target them. I did set them up with selection boxes and bonding boxes
Edit - Problem found. The selection and bonding boxes were not in the proper spot in the nif. moving them from the mesh to the bip seems to have fixed the problem. I'll be fixing and re-uploading them as the day goes on - and probably a bunch of other previous releases as well.
Thanks Cranlox for testing them and finding the problem.
Edit 2 - Problem fixed. Looking at some of the default FFvt3R characters, the ones I looked at all had bounding boxes, and some had selection boxes. Even with only the bounding box, I was able to target the enemy. The 5 vampires and skeletons have been re-uploaded with the boxes in the right place. Tested and working for this problem.
Still 2 unresolved issues with just about all the new imports though - 1) the characters will only attack twice and then stop. If you move away from the target and then back, they''ll attack once more. Same with the imports as enemies. I have no idea why.
2) Depending on the way the original game handles animations, after the character falls, they jump back up again. Has no effect on game play - they will still fade away, or end the rumble room combat if they're the last on their side.
I'll put some info up on the project help page of others things found, instead of crowding it on here.
RD
The problem with the new imports having limited attacks has been fixed. Probably something simple for some of the old timers like SA or Benton, but not something I was familiar with.
Thanks to an old post by Seraglio, I found that the problem was that the melee animations in the kfs didn't have contact points. Adding those in fixed the problem. More info for those interested will be in the projects thread.
After adding the contact points, I watched 4 of the new imports beat 4 copies of themselves up until one side was defeated.
Instead of re-uploading all the files again, I'm just going to upload a rar with the fixed kfs in it. The "Svulture" kfs are for the Vampire Lord, and the "Swordsman" kf are for the skeletons and vampires, but will work with the Vampire Lord also. Just rename them to "character.kf" and replace the old ones.
Uploaded to the import folder on the mega site.
Sorry for the trouble, but at least the imports are getting better in game functionality as I pick up new info.
RD
I miss the contact thing every time actually. More that fussy stuff about the game engine I was talking about though. Likewise bounding boxes and so on though in their cases I just stay with the copy properties from donor method so I don't have to fine comb everything.
SA,
Copying the boxes from a donor is working well, but since some of the imports are odd shapes I'm having to manually adjust some them to fit the mesh better.
I'm sure if I hadn't of figured it out you would of put me in the right direction.
Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/449928937699541002/894364228641751101/van_helsing_hex.PNG)
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/449928937699541002/894364368077221908/van_helsing_hex_2.PNG)
(https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/449928937699541002/894364414453645332/van_helsing_hex_3.PNG)
I put this together with a C6 base, Tomato's suit base which I modified to fit normal male_basic meshes, A hair base by Deadhead, the fur from Pan, and bits of the Irrational male_suit default. Finally, I removed the hat, hair, and backpack bits from the Van Helsing mesh by Texas Jack. Haven't made a unique extras texture, might do that later.
Nice work! And something unexpected instead of the monsters I was thinking of.
Below we have an anime-looking witch from Atlantica Online. I had also wanted to maybe rig gni's witch to it, but its a very complicated armature - about 80 bones!
She does has a nice set of animation set up for her. The black on the broom is due to me not figuring out how to set up alpha on the tga. It came with dds's that were set up with working alpha, but they had other problems - in this case the original dds make the broom vanish! Except for that, she's ready to go. If someone can help with the alpha, that would be great.
Every witch needs her (very) black cat. Next to her is one imported from NWN2, and rigged on the WP2 domistic cat armature. The original was also very complicated with moving mouth/ jaw, ears and whiskers. I lost most of that in the rigging process due to mesh differences.
So far, the cat only has its idle and walking kfs done, so its still in progress. Hopefully no issues come up with the rest of the rigging. If so, I've got an alternate black cat from DAoC to try.
RD
(https://i.postimg.cc/c4ZVn0Zg/witch.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
Great stuff people. I don't know what I like more but maybe Peter Cushing just for that nostalgia note.
Some samples from a huge project I've been working on for years now. Really hoping to finish and release this thing this winter finally:
(http://catman.freedomforceforever.com/temp/ldhallow.jpg)
Lots of awesome Halloween content. Didn't expect a proper (dapper?) vampire hunter to go along with a fancy vampire. And I totally want to Rumble Room some Jason action now.
SA, is that last dress Morticia inspired, or was it something LD actually wore?
So much cool, serious content here I'm tempted to poke Mikey to inspire some nipple-hose silliness.
Speaking of which ...
Three shapeshifters walk into an alternate dimension..... (I wanted to tweak these a little more, but never got around to it)
(https://image.ibb.co/jTGRnf/JLS.jpg)
Figured I'd post the download link for Van Helsing in this thread in case people missed it. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/449928937699541002/894730626798845982/Van_Helsing_coat.zip
TY Panther Gunn. It is both Morticia inspired and something Lady Death wore. A big project as I said and I am covering all her famous in comic and on cover looks. The fourth is a variant cover called Trick Or Treat for the issue Lady Death: All Hallows Evil. I also made the Morticia dress for another texture based on the Cara Mia variant of Lady Death: Merciless Onslaught #1 by Michael Dipascale which is an art depicting Lady Death cosplaying as Morticia.
Two more in progress - a dire rat and a wraith from NWN2. I haven't figured out kfs from that game yet, so they'll probably go on FF1/FF2 keyframes.
Alpha is turned on for both - the rat for his whiskers and the wraith for his skin - transparency could be turned up on him to make him more transparent.
(https://i.postimg.cc/yNKWnd3d/rats.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/Xr2VYn8S)
That rat sure is spooky. It is not getting candy from my house.
@Panther_Gunn: Here, a sample preview of the Lady Death project I've been on. No weapons in the preview sorry though I've working my nubs off getting her signature stuff modelled in detail. Morticia is at the very end after Lily, also a cover art done by Michael Dipascale.
(http://catman.freedomforceforever.com/temp/ldsample.jpg)
Wow, SA
That's a lot of hard work done!
Much appreciated and looking forward to release.
Done - all checked in game
The Rat - Rigged to Bearded's rat. It breaks up some in character viewer but seems alright in game.
Alcina the Witch - checked her in game with flight turned on. Still has the alpha problem for the broom skin
The Wraith - transparency at about 50% - rigged to the FF male_swimmer kfs.
The Black Cat - rigged to the domestic cat kfs from WP2. Now Agatha Harkness can have her Ebony.
The original WP2 cat has some different skins for that mesh that might work with Teekl or Chewie
They'll be going up shortly with some items to the mega site sometime today.
Ty. More than two years worth granted off and on between work and travel. It started as an idea to provide skinners with a method to make complex female clothing just using the textures since they aren't widely represented. Doing art study one night led me to find Lady Death is a well known subject among both the traditional art circles and fashion ones and as it came on the anniversary of the character I decided she was the perfect subject for my project. I've expanded since then of course and also added other things for modders like new animation types and so forth. The hopes is down the line this will open the doors for people here to make a lot of ideas they have in real time and with little resistance.
Likewise it's why the Spider-mobile is taking longer to meet the request. I'm setting it up in a way that anyone with no knowledge of modelling nor keyframe animations will be able to make any vehicle with drivers or no from it with little work put in at all. When I was doing this for you all that popped into my head as well and all the different vehicles out there people might want to put into the games eventually.
Guys, I can't tell y'all how happy it makes me to see this thread and the level of (awesome!) participation it's receiving! I love it, and DG would be so happy to see it.
Lots of really great stuff! Nait, that werewolf is just gorgeous! PG, nice work on the DJ version to start us off! SA, wow, what variety and detail! Those are amazing! RD, what great spooky-themed stuff! I really like those skeletons, very Jason and the Argonauts! SPY, I've already told you how much I love your photoskin work on Van Helsing, but it is worth repeating! He looks just plain amazing!
(https://i.imgur.com/zKFtjFf.png)Sarra
https://www.mediafire.com/file/0imjsctgisazmsq/000_Sarra.rar/file (https://www.mediafire.com/file/0imjsctgisazmsq/000_Sarra.rar/file)
Very cool, Cranlox! I don't know the character, but great work!
My interest is piqued as well on whom that is, tried to look it up but couldn't find a match. Elegant work. I've been playing a lot with hair, fur and moss myself lately.
A previous version of Wonai, although I can't get the hairs on her wrists with volume. And the hair moves unevenly in some actions.
He comes chasing the trail of Sarra
(https://i.imgur.com/TcNZkAO.png)Wonai
https://www.mediafire.com/file/a66upmsyff58adx/000_Wonai.rar/file (https://www.mediafire.com/file/a66upmsyff58adx/000_Wonai.rar/file)
A more realistic version of Gorutta Jones
(https://i.imgur.com/AYVC810.png)Gorutta
https://www.mediafire.com/file/pnc4wfigb0le12x/100%2525_Gorutta_Jones.rar/file (https://www.mediafire.com/file/pnc4wfigb0le12x/100%2525_Gorutta_Jones.rar/file)
They look good anyways. The trick is Nifskope for wrist hair otherwise, it's a bit of a patient process but something I'm using on other stuff myself. The above Lady Death actually for some dress/costume parts. Like the sloppy but easy is take hair parts from say the Beast nifs out there, put them onto the forearm of the desired nif, position and size them. The long way is make a 3d model yourself (or just steal one from one of my nifs, I make these things on and off) and use the method of creating hair/fur with the alpha channel on the texture. Looks much better though it doesn't work for spit in the first game given the flaw in rendering alpha channels.
The right way is to use particle emitters to create hair/fur like in the Monsters Inc. movie for example but I can not figure out how to get that to work at all. I know at least you have to know how to control the speed and movement of a particle which in this case you don't want it to move at all and then the height/distance as well so you can just make this long particle basically then repeat it all over the models body and/or select sections of the body. I've watched videos of the effect and it is very pretty, also it's supposed to be nice and easy on the game engines resources (fur models otherwise have a lot of faces of course to load and render).
But the alpha trick works just as well. When I release Lady Death feel free to look at those wrist parts and how it's done and recycle it, pretty much the overall intention of that project was to create a way for skinners to do stuff like that anyways. It just became the Lady Death character since she had enough costume variation to be used as an example for it. I'm looking at this winter for that release, I have a lot of keyframe work to pound out on that one yet that's very time consuming, real delicate stuff there.
Though aside the point you're texturing skills are above the grade enough anyways that I don't think it makes a difference and in game those would look excellent. A good developer knows how to beat the odds just using the texture and you have that down pact cranlox. Too bad we can't utilize normals, that would solve a lot of that but it doesn't look like they fully implemented that function these games.
Coming out of the shadows...
(https://i.imgur.com/VmBSbw1.jpg)
Part of a larger project. Details to follow.
This challenge has some great work entered, and brought, as Doc just said, people "out of the shadows".
Daglob would be very happy seeing the response the challenge has gotten.
Every witch should have a toad to go along with her cat... either for a pet or to throw in the cauldron.
A poison toad from AO. comes with blinking eyes, a long sticky tongue and an alternate blue skin. The black on top is the alpha problem again.
I've also got a more traditional giant frog/toad from NWN2 that could be rigged to the same armature with luck.
(https://i.postimg.cc/tg45bvGg/toad1.jpg) (https://postimages.org/)
auwww what a cute amphibian!
Thanks for all your patience Alice explanation.
I'm sure I'm going to fight with that to see if I can. Relatively I am satisfied with the characters. Although they could always be better.
Benton of the Grey Lagoon.
Ortho:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/gOxv5NS.jpg)
Action:
Spoiler
(https://i.imgur.com/eS17cWi.jpg)
Awesome Sauce all around!!! The great DaGlob would be proud!
DJ - Benton never looked better! :)
Like I said on Discord, I love it! He (I?) looks great! It's a great Halloween treat! :thumbup:
All this stuff is just pretty guys, seriously. Just top notch work going on in here.
(https://i.imgur.com/suF4rIk.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/mNJXHZv.jpg)
Back after an absence. This skin is dedicated to DaGlob. The skope is dedicated to Cyber Burn. Two of the best of all. I will not claim to have been close to either, but their... departure... impacted me. I decided that the best way to honor their memories would be to shake off my lethargy. So that is what I am trying to here.
Lord Orlok
Inspired by public domain character: Count Orlok (from the film Nosferatu).
https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Orlok
Thanks to Murs, Gryphon, Tomato, Courtnal6, DarkJered, and Zed for bases, Texas Jack for the mesh and Grenadier, Ink, and Tommyboy for the pieces.
Lord Orlok recasts the character as a vampire in the Centauri Protectorate, my imagined galactic empire with a Jack Kirby aesthetic.
The design with the helmet was the original inspiration. The design is based on Kirby's design for Mantis, who was conceived as an "energy vampire" (Kirby simplified the design a bit for the comics). This design serves as Orloks battle armor.
A word about the cape. Kirbys Mantis has this cape that attached at the arms and ankles. Dramatic looking but totally impractical in the real world. I think I came close using Inks Storm and Manta capes. The Manta cape distorts a bit, but in a way that works. I like how they form a bat wing like shape in the flight and hover animations.
The second look is supposed to be evocative of Orlok's original overcoat look from the film. The design is basically a recoloring of Kirby Ikarus design, but I like how it came out. It looks good with the cape too.
Great designs and lovely skins, DC! These are a fitting tribute to our fallen friends. They would have loved them.
I enjoyed your descriptions of your design choices, and I can totally see the logic. They do seem very Kirby-esq, which I love. Great work!
That texturing job is marvelous. It makes me remember I thought about doing the classic Orlok. It was after watching Shadow Of The Vampire. How to pull off the whole rising stiff as a board from the coffin with his arms crossed animation though. I mean you have to have that in there you know?
That loincloths texture assignment. I knew I should have fixed that after I did Ebony Maw awhile ago. Sorry, sometimes I get lazy about that. I'll try and remember to get on a universal loincloth without a jaggled texture assignment. It's a shame for that for be done to such excellent work. I'm trying to be better about that stuff nowadays and go through and fix a lot of the bugs a put into the mix.
Just wanted to post here real quick before I'm offline for the day.
doc, I could tell that was an old vampire from the preview, but I didn't think about Nosferatu (but I can see it now). I did however immediately get that Kirby vibe. I love it.
DJ, that is just plain awesome. It makes me not want to be around BG when the moon is full. Or maybe he needs to be hit with swamp mud to trigger the change.
In case anyone needs a little extra inspiration (although there seems to be plenty of that this year), I thought I'd re-post a perennial favorite from daglob. He did these a few years ago, and I always like seeing them:
(https://i.imgur.com/LpioqT2.png)
Well, here we are, Halloween is gone, which means this year's "challenge" is over. But as daglob would always say, "If you have something almost finished, please post it anyway, and we'll all look at it and enjoy it."
Honestly, this got way more participation than I thought it would, and it was all awesome. And while I think he liked any participation (even if it was Mikey's silliness), I think daglob would have loved every single thing that was posted this year. And for that, I thank you. :closedeyes:
I was going to wrap this up with an old classic, but when I went to grab the link, the site is no longer there. Instead, the best I can do is post a Wayback link to the image, and you'll all have to go view it yourselves.
https://web.archive.org/web/20041225003955/http://www.stkp.com/POSER/GALLERY/halloweenhumor.jpg
I say keep doing these. I think more people are filing in as we head into winter, it's usually the season I become more active here myself for the obvious reasons. I appreciated seeing all of em. I was going to make full on Trick Or Treaters but I'm struggling physically when doing this stuff so my load is going to be pretty light for the year.
PG, I think you're entirely right, and DG would have loved everything about this. Thank you, everyone who participated. This was wonderful in multiple ways.