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Hey Howie! I'm poster #100 ! wow

Can I have a free screensaver?

I can't go much far than that, kangaroo2

Indeed, is a great thing that DarkBasic is using a Basic language. Is the only thing I could start to learn. But already decided I'll leave that to the great coders. Me no good for that stuff

Nazgul don't worry the last comment wasn't really for you... as i've not seen enough of you about - and you actually seem to understand alot more than most around here.

I personally can model, skin, animate, program, design, team manage, blah blah ... however when i do have to do it all - EVERYTHING suffers.
First and foremost i'm a low polygon modeller, you give me a mesh with 10,000 polygons i can compact that for you to almost any level
animation i've learn as part of when i was modelling with Hierachy WAAAAAY before Inverse Kinetics ever came onto the scene (note i said IK not Weighting).
Now IK certainly has its advantage to adding realism and such i'll admit, BUT when you add weighting into the equasion - that is made for complexly calculating how faces shift based on how much the vertex weigh.

In an engine which doesn't support this, it doesn't make any difference to standard IK ... and putting it in a realtime engine just makes no sense to me.
Althought PC's are advancing - have you seen the spec for Unreal Tournament 2003?

I prefer to work on the standard machines at the time, not the powerhouses ... and i can't even RUN that game.
Same goes for JK2 - i love that game, but adding in weighing is just a waste of time - because even those with the highend system are running at 30fps on 1024x768x32
and this is because OF the weighting taking more power out of the program than needed.

And really the only time people need it is for suff suchas CGR where you can have a good 2,500+ polygons on just the face to give the degree of accuracy needed to show the weights in action.

To an artist the differences are big, but we've learn to pickup on the small things in games. Like how many times have you been going through something like Quake and picked up an inconsistancy is the design?

I mean I CAN do every job ... and I CAN do it to a degree which is graphically stunning. But being able to do an entire model to a game degree (or atleast to a level that people NOW would want to see) within a day is pushing it.

I can churn out around 45 mesh a day (and have done so with an aeroplane collection i made once back on RGT if anyone remembers) ... however skinning them is a different matter. Because you have to think about what should go where than making it just generic - using photoshop has always been an unhill struggle do to it unfriendly interface - and then you have to setup animations using bones, setting up the evelopes and weights (because if you don't set them up you get vertex you don't want and an animation that acts fudged up)

and finally you have your game model... i remember when i was with my sister i made a model in Max3 and PhotoShop5 and it took me almost 23hours to complete with only 250frames of animation.

whereas a similar character i made with my brother like 4months ago, i made the mesh in Maya4, he skined it within PhotoShop7 and i animated whilst he skinned ... model took 5hours from design to complete thats with over 4,000 frames of animation - and making it appear as real as something you'd see in CGR.

another things newbies tend to forget is that if they want to animate a character... where they place thier Edges, especially in the low polygon models, so that they bend right.

For formats suchas Quake3 it is fantastic, becuase you don't have any skeletons to conform to - and adding hundreds of bones just make animating a little long-winded rather than actually slowing down the game.

In games like Jedi Knight 2 and UT2k3 - you have to remember EACH bone point has to be calculated with a Quaterion ... then with a Eluar Angle to make sure its alright - finally it gets into the weighting, which double the processing time per point.

If you have like 100 bones then you can see that speed is going to suffer. But programmers for some reason never think about that, and Artists oftenly don't have a clue that it will.

I mean Max from what i've seen since being Kinetix have had weighting ...
Maya has always had them, but until recently has really been more of a CGR product for film development ...
Lightwave has had it, but the Puppet Master animator actually works most of that out for you - and doesn't matter greatly if you use it or not.
trueSpace still stands more of object IK and K than it does on weighting of anykinda - but then it uses properties for object, which is different.

As far as personal preferance is consern'd Maya is the BEST suited for Low Polygon development.
and by that i don't mean the everyday pro artist 5,000 polygon is low poly meaning ... but i mean under 1,000 polygon for characters low polygon.

Max is powerful, but unfortunately it is FAR to buggy and poorly setup - and if i didn't have to use it, i would take it out back and put it out of everyones misery.

Lightwave is outstanding, just not my cuppa tea
Over the past 2versions the Render engine has been trying to keepup with trueSpaces and quite frankly is now is just beyond outstanding - however the 2 programs for Animating and Modelling can get annoying.

trueSpace is really more of a CGR program, but as PC's get closer and closer to using 5,000 and 10,000 polygons models for thier uses no doubt people will start seeing it in a different light. As for me i'm still gonna just have it around because its a fun program to use and create quick art

softimage ... hmmm enough said

lol - it quite funny to see someone else saying that being in the "industry" isn't alot of fun.
i shoulda compacted my comments on that down to a simple sentace.

Image the hell you put the DBS Team though, thats what someone will do to you PLUS you boss who doesn't understand the work.

its true though, its annoying how within ALOT of development companies the guys incharge of a development havn't a f**kin' clue about games or anything like that. Most of the time they don't even use them. They're just there to make the most money.

Ho hum eh

Cool, vegeta. Well, indeed I'm ultra pacific and hyper constructive . Common sense is my main aiming

That about IK...I animate with plain posing the bones, no IK. Kind of animating very rude way,(I do position every bone, but kind of like it ) in Character FX. I think it has IK, but I never got interested about it...yet. I used IK in 3dstudio msdos, back in a '96 course.

I read you and now I understand...weighting is heavy for the engines...That I imagine. I was told something a bout it by a friend, dx coder. Also another dx programmer told me of the lots of performance loss it would add to his engine, loading an anim like that. Then he did what I think people call softbody skinning. A single piece mesh too, and interpolations are calculated inbetween. perhaps that is not so heavy? In GameStudio I saw that. Wait...hey! frontpage has changed. Much better now. Re-reading features now...But yet unsure if -while I already understood bones and weights are to expensive- that of keyframe interpolation, with softbody skinning is possible. I agree with you, the first problem in games use to be performance, and a balanced thing...Though as I was saying, I'm more for the tech demo thing and eye candy than after making a big project. I'm interested in graphical power of Dbpro over any other engine, that's it. But I put no doubt that for making a game, is just as you say.

er...How can md2 have bones? That new paragraph I don't get it at all...I paste here :

Bone Based Animated Model Support (+ Mesh Deformation)
DarkBASIC Professional provides total control and support for these bone based animation formats:
.MD2 (Quake2), .MD3 (Quake3), .MDL (Half Life). Now animated characters will move and animate smoothly.

The ".X" & ".3DS" model support are also still supported.

However, I think the page looks way much better now, is more direct the information. Thumbs up for it.

Please, forgive this artist. I don't have a passion for coding so I concentrate all my ambitions in graphical output. That's why even admiting your point is th most valid one, I yet would like to see smooth human anims. Through softbody skinning (interpolation), if the other way was to heavy. I am not asking for it, hehe, I never did. I am not even an user yet. But if it is already there, It would cool to know. But looking overall to the features, the product is outstanding with or without it. I mean, animating plain bones with no weights is cool too.

Oh! About Unreal being heavy...Well, the mountain of effects and stuff put into that game seems to have no end. Editing for it is almost a pain (but a pleasure too) as complex things get more complex. I mean, I guess performance requirements (in general, a geforce4mx,(if you lower in preferences) or geforce 3 and a pentiumIII is the way to play more or less. But for playing well...I guess a pIV and gf4 ti4200 128mb is way to go. )

Yep, too hi. I would never plan to do more than a shareware or free game demo. But with sero effects. The only "advanced" thing I'd add would be the softskining.

Reading above I must say you're a quick artist. I am much slower. Perhaps only thing I could be that quick is in drawing and making whatever the 2d stuff..UI elements, game icons and that. No way I could model that quick. Anyway, I only model character, only skin and animate characters.I've done other stuff, but I usually do not like it. Is done when is asked for.

where they place thier Edges, especially in the low polygon models, so that they bend right.

That's a proffesion itself. And efficient UVs too. I'm not more than decent in those. But ppl or boss used to like. Any more advanced guy would have spotted same things I already did. But again the compromise with time remaining etc.

If you have like 100 bones then you can see that speed is going to suffer. But programmers for some reason never think about that, and Artists oftenly don't have a clue that it will.

I was given the clue some months ago...But was unsure if the guy thought it would be easier to just add md2 support to his dx engine. Md2 gets a result almost as sooth as what I am after of the softbody skinning. I don't know yet if md2 can interpolates some meshes or really needs to lead a emsh per frame in whatever the enviroment..That'd be heavy..and would need to reduce the number of frames..also the smoothness, then. And that what is said of vertex unwanted trembling when using md2 format. Which either know if it's format specific, or can be avoided here. Oh, and the problems with collision detection in md2. If all this was solved, md2 would already be an interpolated mesh keyframing method. A softbody, of softskinning (how ever it is called) way, I mean.

trueSpace still stands more of object IK and K than it does on weighting of anykinda -

It has them via editing muscles and tendons weights at vertex level. TS6 in features seems very powerful. And the dx8 support would give me total compatibility with the all the tools I use.

Maya is sweet, I admit it. my problem is any comercial package I have handled is a dream for me in terms of power and easiness. I am used to beta , free, open source or cheap apps, dealing all the time with conversion odds and lots of limits everywhere in the package. Even so, cool art can be made. This I mean at home, as a hobbyst. At a company I go directly and use the purchased stuff. I am a Photoshop lover for years...But can understand if others don't like it. It happens to me with other packages. Is what you get used to.

but i mean under 1,000 polygon for characters low polygon

Oh, I refered to a bit higher, 1300 or so...but it always depends..

If I would have liked to have purchased a package, it'd be Lightwave. I'll probably buy one day Ts6, for the money thing.

lol - it quite funny to see someone else saying that being in the "industry" isn't alot of fun.

My short experience was crappy. I ended almost with bad health. Sure it's not so everywhere. But I guessed those pressures are not for me. I may come back later if things start to get very bad...


About that last sentence..haha...guess what. I am not gonna say which game it was (we had bad luck among other things) but at the end I realised I had made many the UI elements, all the editor icons (loads) and other artwork, drawings, illustrations, texturing, hi/med models characterizing, etc...and I hadn't plaid the game NOT A SINGLE TIME. We were a bunch of guys, starving, to say more. Perhaps the smallest team ever to do a game..depending on each one kind of..er..*cough*..contract... no more than seven guys. Just imagine what a hell. The game was not the hugely complexity of AAA titles. But it had it's complexity, levels, etc, etc. I mean, a comercial game is always big.

So that's not an standard experience, not a real experience in the big thing. But I guess we suffered much more than in an stablished company. The game got good distribution. But other problems arised. Er..time to compact.

So, I realized that at least not living in Canada, Uk, Usa or Germany (to put some examples) , it was going to be hard to keep alive (and I meant alive) in that business.

That added to working other years in pc tech support, web designing as a freelance (recieving poor payment, or being fooled) makes me be much realistic, and not "dream" much anymore. And of course, understand very well that complaining is a think I'd do my best to avoid. Even if I buy dbpro some day

Heck, too much data about the game thing..well..Anyway, wont say the name..

Whatever. Doing as a hobby has nothing to do with all that. Is plainly differnt. I don't mean better, but different.

on the behalf of trueSpace 4|5|6 - thats kinda what i ment when i said it doesn't really have weighting.

for games you weight the vertex points to the joint points, otherwise the calculations needed are just ridiculous
SoftBody Dynamics is just really an extension upon MD3 format ... where you pre-calculate movements around the animation based on a weight value per vertex but also uses the Stiffness of a Face|Edge.

This gives you greater animation dynamics, but it is all precalculated - so you can't say have hair that blows in the wind because the calculations are too heavy for anything other than the topend computers.

Really the SoftBody dynamics were the answer between, property based animation and realtime animation ...

you take your model with its skeleton, and rather calculating the movements realtime its all calculated before the game and placed within a buffer until it is needed. It saves on the original format size and the extended size is only used AS the format is loaded.

the vertex jumping was actually because of the way MD2 is setup, and you'll notice its big brother MD3 doesn't suffer from it. This is mostly actually more because its an appearance of jumping, when in reality it just the MD2's Normal swapping because the program is unsure to where it is.
This is what you get with 255 precision unfortunatly
you can hack this by using floats instead and having the engine calc - which when Quake2 was new would've killed a system, but is now a pretty cost effective routine with fast phong
And collision has always been bad, simply because its not polygon based but box - which is set to 128x256x128 so really if you model goes outside the box then it is out of box then it can pass through

i'll see about making some code for DB Enhanced and Professional to show you how this can be achieved within the languages

i enjoy technology demo's but i work daily on problems for projects that are to end up on shelves - so really my mind never stops to think about what would be better graphically. More a personal trait hehee

i know that alot of countries it just isn't financially viable to create games, but then again starting something as a hobby when it gets a professional look and feel to it - you can sell it to publisher for stupid money.

as far as money within what i do goes, i mean i can't complain a bit - even at the lowest levels your still talking about $15-20k for jnr artists in the States, UK and most of Europe.
which is a fair wage, not much when you factor in the tools for home use ... but fair.

however the thing is your ALWAYS on a deadline, if there was a previous game - even if your weren't onvolved the fans seem to think it is YOUR fault that the new one has bugs or is so far behind - you suddenly get unsociable hours meaning the net becomes a larger part of you life than you'd like - alot of people who interveiw you will give you greif about what your do ...

i remember back in '00 a guy from PC Format was talking to me and turned to me after the interveiw and said "i don't see what hell is so special about you that means you can earn £65,000!"

i had a good mind to talk around to him and tell him that perhaps cause i'm doing the work of 4 people, working 80hours a week, creating something that no doubt some asshole like you will tear apart and make fun of!

and i do remember the reviews slagged off the visiuals on the PC version - but the Playstation version had outstanding graphics ... so ack kinda hateful.

i can relate to the freelance experience - and if you get an agency they take so much from the fee's your better off on unemployment benifits.

"they take so much from the fee's your better off on unemployment benifits." lol not quite, but you're right, its criminal.

NazGul I was only joking, you obviously know a lot more what you're talking about than many annoying NooBs here, and with sensible comments and discussions like this, in my book, you're v welcome

"i remember back in '00 a guy from PC Format was talking to me and turned to me after the interveiw and said "i don't see what hell is so special about you that means you can earn £65,000!"

I think it was a case of...

COLOR OBJECT pcfguy,RGB(0,255,0)

lmao ... well even now most reveiwers and interveiwers for such magazines think just developing a magazine about games is just as hard.
PCG-UK though, is usually fairer about thier judgements and reveiws, mainly because the guys there hang out with a development companies staff - and they understand what a bitch working on games really is.

anyone who thinks the industry is candy-canes and just having a laugh making games, unless they grow up within the industry knowing what to expect generally die off into the obscure companies

the ones that make it, are within places like this taking several years to understand all levels of development.

you can't have an artist who know exactly how to model, but when it comes to an effect he wants the programmers to reproduce he can't explain it in thier terms, then that makes everyone else life just a pain in the ass.

and when you have a programmer who's the exact same way about art - well ... they might as well be speaking in foreign languages.

its essential for development a team can work well together and get ideas across quickly and easily.

as an artist you'll notice that i make alot of long posts and explain my points carefully, trying to get everyone to understand.
Believe it or not this is a knockon effect from working professionally. Sometimes a picture just wont do it and you need the terms
And you have to be presise as hell, because you give artists or programmers a margin of leaway BOOM! you have something you REALLY don't want. And more oftenly a piss'd off coder cause he has to remake something.

Cool info. Really. Specially that about md2 and md3 format. Absolutely useful.

Kangaroo2, thank you, man.

yup, it's always 2 worlds..coders and artists...anyway, I'm use to be seen as a more techy artist. By no means as tech wise as you But enough to be wanted by coders

80 hours a week...argh...yes. I had not that much. I had smaller salary than u could ever imagine. To tell you the truth, the last months I realised it didn't worth it. And that if a game company is not rock solid, you at the end loose health, life...and in those cases, when the game ends, job too. Mostly if your area is so bad for these things that could be considered a miracle to release somthing. I at the end was working long hours at night even on weekends...Was kindof external to the team,(no money for a full thing. Starving was the term I used ;D) they simply didn't sleep. Perhaps an isolated hour. I had the "luck" of not being so involved. At the end was more a thing of not leaving them alone, and see the monster ended.

Already was dreaming with some office quiet job, 8 hours a day, having breakfast, sleeping, seing a woman every month, not eating a cold pizza over the keyboard...But i have to say I passed god times, happens when you're with friends. But I knew though we would succed with the game, we wouldn't with the company. Too much against us in the enviroment. Heck, now sure I cannot say the name, lol.

There were much weird things. But let those leave there.

In relation with the actual activity, have to say I started to hate my wacom, to hate vertices, the kitkat machine..

Only similar to doing some webpages (mostly graphic side) with no sleep, several years before, for several clients at a time. It wasn't just paid little...3 times that i can remmeber, it was no pay, just for the smart guy works that way, and slips away to other town. One of those I could find where he lived...and he paid...mwuahahahahaa...don't be scared. He just felt badly and paid.

Really, I read every now and then in terms of hours, pressure, no sleep and all is not much different in many companies. Game making is hard, really hard. The big payment is deserved. Those long hours with a light direct in your eyes are bad for health, and the same other un-healthy jobs, must have a high extra payment.(and we got the extra low!!) I had much bellow payment for the job I did. Really much lower. Almost ridiculous, if I tell you.

Not trying to discourage anyone. Have friends working 8 hours, and they're really happy, and in a cool enviroment. Bosses use to be very relaxed, young people. I guess it depends on the game company and how things go.

But you have to like it. Even been 8 hours, all the time is problems, all the time learning at hi speed. Much different to a quiet job. If you have a headache, but tomorrow is the date, you have to stay at night with the wacom though it hurts. It use to bring many satisfactions too, though. In my little experience.

Oh , magazines..one did destroyed us (our game). Due to kind of some obscure reasons, non related with the game... The critic were ridiculous. Found me reading them seing that the so called errors were some of the good points of the game. I kept happy as many others gave better treatment. Gamers and mags can't get to know what is behind that. if not, they would never talk so quickly. They would give it a better chance. I'm proud of what we did with so low resources. Back again to that concept of optimizing I think of it and can't believe it yet.

I am not gearing now to freelancing or games anymore. But a solid peaceful job. Hopefully then I'll make games at my pleasure. That's another point I discovered : You never can get the perfection needed. The main coder and I were really after perfection results. (at the beguining) We never could do things that way. But reaching an aceptable point. Not going bellow some other quality point, too. All the time so. Not really enjoying, then. I guess with money, minimal tools and power behind you, you can do this better way all the time Even so I got surprised of how things get done.

So, my best wishes to independent games, inmho is a place were enjoying can be easier

Anyway, with some less pressure, some better luck..I must say I had fine times, learned a thillion things in little time..been 7 guys or so...we were in control. Me making the concept art, the icons, sevral 3d, the press renders touches, etc... Not just a repetitive tiny part in a huge team. So, not all was so dark.

Vegeta, I can understand perfectly why they pay you those bucks I can't think now of any other -of the little which I know- like you.

its bad at the bottom cause people treat you like dirt...
its bad at the top cause everyone expects miricles from you...

you don't know how calming it is to actually be in a place where no one knows who the hell you are
sometimes it is better just to have a 9-5 ... because really with ever exceeding demands and ever growing companies, i see very soon a crash within the industry for people who are capable of this to an outstanding degree - rather than anyone who can draw a pixel hehee

personally i'm going to be happy when i've earnt enough to start my own company properly. Because although its nice working for people, and having large design ca'blancé its just - i dunno not the same as making your own title.

partically why i'm SERIOUSLY considering a recent request from a friend at Rareware ... because they want entirely new games for a new format. That would be just truely outstanding, but still having my own place with a few mates - working on titles we all want to.
I dunno the id software ideal kinda appeals to me

If I were you I wouldn't consider the Rareware deal ... I would just go for it straight away

I know what you mean, it can be a problem when programmers / artists and so on don't understand each other - which is why one has to at least have a basic grounding in the other.

This is the same reason why Linux has awful GUIs, because the programmers don't understand the mental-processes of a Joe Bloggs end user.

If I were you I wouldn't consider the Rareware deal ... I would just go for it straight away

I know what you mean, it can be a problem when programmers / artists and so on don't understand each other - which is why one has to at least have a basic grounding in the other.

lol COLOR OBJECT pcfguy,RGB(0,255,0) lmao nice 1

Yeah Raven's a rare breed, some1 in games development whos got experience on all sides, and is therefore understaning of the actual process of deisnging and making them. Plus he doesn't mind helping little guys like me with silly queries on a messanger lol Thanks Man

"Bassi"

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