Animation, and rigging. Starcraft 2 Acolyte.

[Traggey]

Alright, hey guys! So I've been working on a model of the undead Acolyte for the Starcraft 2 engine.

[Edit of OP Post]

I've gotten pretty much everything working in-game now, animations work, only have 2 so far but myeh, more coming.
Only thing I can't get working is Team Colour and the Opacity map.

// Traggey

 

[Deolrin]

Pretty neat, but I really think you'll need someone to texture it for you. The texture looks kinda... Weak, cartoony. I don't know how to call it.

 

[Traggey]

The texture is not quite finished, it's close though, it simply needs some touch-ups. It's supposed to look cartoony, I was going for a Warcraft like style. Also, I should mention that this texture is 100 % lit, no shading or anything, it will look quite different in the actuall engine with bump and specular maps. I'll post pictures when I have some ready.

 

[Deolrin]

Oh, if you're working on Normal and Specular maps, that's a completely different story. ^^
It could use some extra skulls on his teamcolored part though.
Anyways, I hope you'll also make the rest of the Undead race once that's done. That would be INCREDIBLY useful to start off the SC2 community around here.
Oh, and his hood\head look squished. They should be bigger on the Z axis.

 

[Traggey]

Working on adding a tad more skulls into it, it's hard getting them corretly on the team coloured parts though, the UVW mapping doesn't quite alow it without the skulls looking squished. The head and rest of the body is actually scaled to a human male reference model so there should not be any problem with the scaling. I do indeed intend to make the rest of the Undead race, perhaps even get working on the others, but that's only if I can actually get some help with the rigging and animation of this or we'll have an army of petrified zombies.

 

[Deolrin]

Well, the WC3 ones were squishy and cartoonish and inhuman, maybe you should go for something like that.

 

[Traggey]

They were indeed, however with the new SC2 engine I figured I should try to do something that looks a bit less odd, something more up to date. Rather alike how World of Warcraft does things.

 

[GhostThruster]

Looks super awesome, I like the texture!

The hood could be higher, so you could actually see his eyes.

 

[kola]

Hmm, debode, i don't know why you find the texture bad, the dress is pretty awesome, only thing i dislike is the knife (the handle looks way to cartoonish).
also, I think you should make all the Red parts in Team color.

and yes, the head looks a bit weird (the model)

 

[GhostThruster]

Grey bits on the shoulderpads need TC too.

 

[Deolrin]

It was mainly the yellow parts that I didn't like, but with a Normal and Specular map this will look rather amazing.

 

[Traggey]

Thanks for your replies guys, I will be touching up the dagger, I'm not very fond of it myself at the moment.

The head will stay as it is, I'm quite pleased with it, you're not actually supposed to be able to see his eyes.

I've been thinking about making the shoulderpads TC aswell, however the original Acolyte aswell as the ones in World of Warcraft don't have TC'd shoulderpads. What do you guys think?

Also, I believe I've found myself a nice tutorial on the animation part, merely have to translate it into SC2, should not be to hard, might have him fully working shortly!

 

[Deolrin]

Yeah, the shoulderpads should be teamcolored, definitely. ^^

 

[Traggey]

Alrighty, team colour it is.

 

[Rui]

The light yellow parts are a little... well, bright. Maybe they should be darker to give the SC2 Acolyte a more scary appearance. His blade looks a little weird too.
Otherwise, good job, keep it up!

 

[Traggey]

I'm going to keep the yellow colours rather bright as for now, once in-game the unit will be viewed from a long distance and I don't want the texture to end up looking like a big moist pile pastell colours.
However I will check to see how darkened yellow parts will work in game once I have everything else working.


Update, pretty much finished now.

 

[Asomath]

I really like how its turning out, its good seeing so many good custom models beginning to be funnelled into SC2. Maybe the Hive will still have a chance in Modding

~Asomath

 

[Triceron]

Team Color is pretty simple.

TC is defined in the Alpha Channel of your Diffuse map. In the Alpha Channel, paint the areas you want TC with Black, and non-TC areas White. When you show RGBA, there should be a red mask over TC areas. On the diffuse map, paint TC areas with a dark color, like dark grey or black. You can use grayscale to blend in the alpha. By using dark grey/black in TC areas of your diffuse, it will let you 'shade' the TC colors by blending in the alpha.

In Max, to set up Team Color you must use a SC2material with SC2bitmaps. In your Diffuse map, scroll to the bottom and you will see two checkboxes, choose the one that says "Render Alpha as Team Color". Now go back to SC2 Material, and choose the options Add, Team Color Diffuse, Team Color Diffuse.

Export your maps and .m3, load em up and Team Color should work.