low poly bird wing

[Roja]

Well I think I finally got it to work myself...still have to see what it's going to look like with a texture though.

If anyone could see how it can be improved please post! :)

[Roja]

Hm..should I have posted this in the rigging forum? Can a mod move it there? Probably a better place for it...

[FreakyDude]

can you provide a blend file? i can have a look at it if you like.

[Roja]

Yeah, can I email it to you? You can pm me with your email address.

This was the best I was able to achieve with it. Note that the texture is just meant to show how the wing bends the texture, it is in no means complete and is currently total crap :p

It doesn't look beautiful with the wing folded obviously, but I can live with the way it is. After all, in the game it's mainly only going to be seen from the top of the bird, or the underside with the wings outstretched.

But anything you can do to make it better without increasing the poly count by too much would be awesome :)

[Roja]

Well here's my outcome of this in the attachments below. I couldn't get it to look really good, but it's decent at least. In a game it would hardly be noticable most likely. Actually I doubt they'll ever be folded in my game, but this was more or less an experiment; I wanted to see if it's possible :)

If anyone has suggestions to make the folded wing look better, by all means, please tell me and offer me advices, or point me in the direction of tutorials!

Final triangle count is 460 on the model.
Here are some renders & an in game screenshot:



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v59/fflewddar/bird_redtailedhawk.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v59/fflewddar/redtailedhawk.jpg

[Tronno]

I can't help you with the rigging, I just want to say that the white border around the wingtips looks kind of awkward. What you can do is slap on some alpha maps, or stretch the texture so the edge of the feathers coincides with the edge of the wing, if that makes sense.

[Roja]

Actually that white part is the edge of the wings..they have white tips. But yeah, it does look a bit awkward..I should probably take some artistic liberties there and just make it black.
No alpha maps for creatures in the game yet :(

Edit: made the tips black on the pic above, hit refresh to see it if you don't

[wesware]

Really nice effort there!
Looking good.

My opinion is that you're either going to have to readjust the folded geomtry to prevent the stretching or add new geometry (or even re-evaluate your basic structure). Perhaps there is a method in the engine to morph between different textures depending upon the current animation state of the bird? :) dunno... just now getting into modelling/texturing/rigging game assets myself. I might have to pick yer brain.

Kudos on getting as far as you have.

[Gamedev]

can you post a screen of the wing actually deforming? I don't see there being too much distortion in the texture. Either way though, just really look at where the wing will bend and add some extra edges there so that is bends smooth.

One suggestion on the texture, around the wing tips, maybe think about alpha mapping the feathers so the edges aren't straight. This will really help the silhouette of the object as right now it looks really really low poly. Same thing goes for the tail.

Good luck.

[wesware]

Hah! Probably should read peoples signatures, I see that you are developing the game. So I'm probably not helping much :)

Just to clarify... you are referring to the stretching correct? I really don't think it's beyond the bounds of most games I've played, especially in the morphed state. Most games I've played fake it... either the bird is flying or it's standing there waiting to get shot :)

If it's a main player shouldn't you spend the poly's?

BTW: downloading the game now.

[Roja]

Thanks guys!

It is only 460 polygons..and yeah, to make it bend better I'd most likely have to add more, which i'm not against doing..i'm just unsure of exactly where/how to do it without playing around for more hours. I already spent too much time on it as it is :p

However, no it's not a main character, in fact the wings won't even fold in the game as of now..and probably never will. I just really wanted to see if it could be done on a low poly.

And as for the alpha map, like I said, they're not supported by the characters in game yet :( We have a lack of programmers unfortunately...maybe someday we'll have it!

[Gamedev]

And as for the alpha map, like I said, they're not supported by the characters in game yet :( We have a lack of programmers unfortunately...maybe someday we'll have it!
Sorry about that - didn't read that part. Ha, I was going to say though, they look prime for some alphas!

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