TF2 Demo Girl WIP, need suggestions

[kromano]

The major dilemma that Kirt (and Valve) were facing was creating a female counterpart that had the same hit box sizes... fitting a female into some of those bulky male exteriors is grueling indeed. Your French woman is notably smaller than the demoman, so as a replacement it'd be a little unbalanced, the player would appear smaller than their actual in-game hitboxes would be.

Aside from that, I like where you're going although the beret strikes me more like a chef's hat than a beret at the moment, have the left (her right) side flop down over the headband a little more. Her feet are a little large and her proportions may be just a little too over the top stylized, but I'd wait for more input on that one.

Still, it's a good start, can't wait to see this one evolve.

[matsman]

Hi,

I agree with kromano on the proportions being not that great yet. smaller feet, thicker upper arms, slightly thicker knees. All the square stuff in the vest makes the kneepads wanna be squarish too I think.

Also I think you are losing something feminine with this concept. I think a little more waist has to show in your bulletproof vest. And I would put a packet of siggarets in a rolled up sleeve probably, or give her one of those long replacement filters...

As far as the boots go, opt for those heavy gal slightly heeled armyboots, french women are by definition very concious on how they look and are almost always stylish. I miss that.

It is a nice idea you are following. Am curious as to how this turns out too.

Au revoir!

[switchblade327]

Cool, thanks guys.

Kromano:
You're totally right, the hit box thing is going to be a big dilemma not only here but for every class save the scout and the heavy. It's the main reason her armor is so bulky and unfeminine; to give her more bulk to hit :) The first potential solution is to give her less hit points to compensate for the smaller size but that gets into balance issues that could be tricky, not to mention surely earning me accusations of sexism. Still, the only other good solution I can think of is to make all the TF2 girls built like Xena, Warrior Princess. Being able to edit hit points would be more liberating then matchhing hit box sizes.

Good call on the chef's hat. I'll tone that down (I stole the hat from another character I have).

Matsman:
All good suggestions on the proportions (I also stole those kneepads from another model I made :D) I think I'm going to roll up her sleeves to add some realistic bulk to her upper arms and square off the kneepads. I agree the vest isn't very feminine and will see how it looks trimmed out a bit, especially if I decided that lowering hit points is the way to go.

Excellent point about the boots too. I can't believe I forgot how much French girls like their boots. I'll add heels and I'll bring the tops closer to the kneepads. If I lace them up instead of leaving them sort of loose like they are now, I could puff up the thighs with wrinkled clothing a bit more. I'll also shrink the boots a bit.

Since she's wearing long sleeves, I'm not sure where to put the cigarettes but I like the idea. Maybe a sleeve pocket like shop coats have? She'll be smoking unfiltered Lucky's though, not those fancy stemmed cigarettes :)

Thanks again guys. And more ideas?

[f4cti0n]

Have you considered making a more bulky bomb technician suit? Ideally, it would replace the Pyro's gender-questioning setup (free up the Pyro to be more 'girlie'!) but you could always add feminine style accessories (I will not elaborate on what I think 'feminine style accessories' are, but I think you'd have plenty of breathing room for creativity). Thus, the hit-boxes are unaffected.

2c

[Clanker]

Haha
Lots of stereotypes on french people, but I keep my sense of humor :p
Maybe you can fake volume with big protections on her knees/elbows, moon boots and giant gloves...

[switchblade327]

Haha
Lots of stereotypes on french people, but I keep my sense of humor :p
Maybe you can fake volume with big protections on her knees/elbows, moon boots and giant gloves...

It's all in good fun :) My country is plenty easy to poke fun at too!

The vest and kneepads are hoping to do just that (artificially bulk her up). I do want to keep her hands feminine so I'd prefer to keep them slender but there are some concerns about her ability to hold to in game gun models. So I might have to give her big gloves anyway. Thanks for the suggestions.

[CodeVeroby]

She looks like the anorexic version of Jill Valentine :thumbsup:

[switchblade327]

Have you considered making a more bulky bomb technician suit? Ideally, it would replace the Pyro's gender-questioning setup (free up the Pyro to be more 'girlie'!) but you could always add feminine style accessories (I will not elaborate on what I think 'feminine style accessories' are, but I think you'd have plenty of breathing room for creativity). Thus, the hit-boxes are unaffected.

2c

It's a good idea and I did look at some real bomb disposal gear for reference but it was a bit much (looks like the mtv astronaut and the next step down is basically a flak jacket, which is why I leaned more towards Baseball Umpire style armor.

Besides, bulking her up with an puffy, androgynous suit would only postpone dealing with the hit box problem. I'd eventually like to see a full team of Female alternates available and every class but the heavy and perhaps the scout and pyro are going to face hit box issues. I'm really starting to think that a minor hit point penalty is the solution.

[kromano]

If I was playing TF2 and it was BLU team vs Xena, Warrior Princess I'd simply surrender then and there. There's no point in lying to myself about it. I've already lost. I am a henchman without a nametag.


Her arms and legs you can work out with baggy clothing pretty easily, your major and most defining obsticle will be her torso. You could give her a cartoony long neck as seen in a lot of fashion drawing and other (to me) French styled drawings to make up for the minor height difference. As long as her head lines up to that of the demoman the sniper won't be making torso shots that should've been headshots and headshots that should've been misses.

Back to baggy clothing, I think you could thicken her legs up a little bit by simply having excess pants ruffling out from the tight kneepads, this would let you keep the appearance of a smaller calf and thigh without deviating too much from the demoman's size.

[switchblade327]

New revision:
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/1463/demogrrlv2sv9.jpg

Here she is with a lot of the new suggestions (the boots are heel boots now; hard to tell from this angle). Plus I thought a scarf/sash might be a nice way to French her up a bit more and get away with a longer neck. I also added some volume to her hair, which is more noticeable from the front.

I'm happier with where she's going now but still not ready to start refining and optimizing geometry or adding too much detail (like the cigarette and pack). Hands still need some love. More thoughts? I'm obviously listening to feedback!

[matsman]

okay... gloves... how about some formfitting hand and really large and loose armpiece gloves, preferably black or blacked by soot.
BTW are the forearms really long or are the big hands and short sleeves throwing me off?
Also from this angle I think you could make her actual waist (not the vest) a little broader, more realistic... that'll partly solve a problem and looks a little better I think.

Also, you can use stuff like grenades to fill out the hitbox without sacrificing feminine shapes... okay, so your silhouette will get a little muddy, but then again, that's what we are after yes?

Good call on the sash, and the hair... looks a lot better already, and those boots are actually very noticeable, first difference I noticed.

[switchblade327]

It looks like it was a combination of the upper arms being a little too short and looking shorter because they disappear up into the shoulder pads. I've stretched them out a bit.

I also brought out the waist some more but it would have to come out an awful lot to show past the armor and I want to keep her upper body pretty svelte. I'm sort of relying on the hips/butt and the head to keep her clearly feminine since the chest is so blocky with the armor.

I'll give the gloves a shot. I was avoiding them since the Demoman wears no gloves and the bomb tech gear I looked at was gloveless, I assume because of the need for fine manipulation. But it would give her arms a more interesting shape without having to give her huge man-hands.

The satchel/bandoleer will bulk her up a little more and with the addition of the heels and the longer neck. she'll be as tall as the Demonman, just not quite as broad.

Any other ideas/suggestions?

[switchblade327]

Started on the satchel/grenade bandoleer and added gloves (though the fingers might still be too dainty to grip the big TF2 weapons). Maybe they'll be fingerless gloves? Also added a temp cigarette (needs to be thicker I think). I also narrowed her chest armor at the bottom to make her more hourglass shaped. I started on the scarf but am torn whether the knot should be on the side (my preference but it'd be more likely to clip through her armor there) or in the front (easier).

Someone in the weekly TF2 match mentioned the need for more distinction from the demoman. It doesn't bother me too much that she's largely in the same uniform but I'll certainly consider any suggestions shy of a total reboot of the character.

[matsman]

looking at it... I like the sash/ scarf and definitely vote for the knot on the side... the gloves I am not too sure about...

the fingers are creepy long, the part over the wrist does feel to long or too short depending on how you look at it, just missing both targets. I guess you wanted longer but also wanted some bare arm to show as well right? Maybe hitch up the sleeves some more...

Hoe about this... one long glove, big and padded for protection, one smaller for the second less dangerous side? might also solve part of the small hands problem.

Finally I don't really like the cloth shape between the kneepad and the leg. So I think that would be better slimmed down or even integrate the kneepad into the boot?

Anyway, good update, looks really stereotypical french :)

[switchblade327]

Thicker, slightly shorter fingers, less arm of the gloves, minor reshaping of the legs, placeholder grenades.



http://img112.imageshack.us/img112/4872/demochickv4ts3.jpg

[kromano]

It's starting to come together, I'd be interested in seeing some other angles of the model though. It seems like she's growing Secretary's ass, and her fingers seem really strange, especially the thumb, but it could be a perspective thing. Keep it up!

[matsman]

Yep still getting better...

How about a belt around the hips/waist... I kinda miss something breaking up the red suit there...

And second on the thumb here... it stick out 90 degrees instead of a normal angle... but I think you will fix that.

Other than that I think you are ready to step up the detailing a bit... Since somehow I think the style still needs finetuning to seemlessly fit into tf2.

Greetings!

[switchblade327]

Okay, I'm starting to get pretty happy with the model. I decompiled the actual Demoman so I could get them side by side for comparison and shaved a whole slug of polys as a result (she's still a couple hundred higher then the male). Finished accessorizing, 'borrowed' the original grenades and gun (scaled up the hands a little more to fit around it), UVW unwrapped it and laid down a temp textures. Hands are fixed and reclocked based on examples form the Paul Hormis rigging class I'm doing.

Kromano, you were right about the butt. I had done too much work on it with her vest on so when I took it off she looked ridiculously bottom heavy. She's dieted since then.

New renders:
http://img247.imageshack.us/img247/2696/v4render1hp5.jpg

http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/6003/v4render3ns2.jpg (http://imageshack.us)



http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/8189/v4render2nr7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

(http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=145&i=v4render2nr7.jpg)

[Kirt]

She's looking good. I think you should explore different ideas with the vest and see if you couldn't come up with something more unique to the character. I mean, aside from the head she's not giving off much of a French vibe. You have the beret, artsy fartsy haircut and the scarf but below the neck she just turns into the Demoman with curves.

I'm not sure what regional fashion styles are the rage with French folk with a proclivity towards high explosives (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/Bomb_Voyage.png). But, something just doesn't seem complete in that area.

[WyattHarris]

I'm reminded of the recurring Mad Bomber character from the Pink Panther series. French guy, always wore a mask, pointy mustache and very pointy chin. Drop the mustache of course. :D

[kromano]

I'm reminded of the recurring Mad Bomber character from the Pink Panther series. French guy, always wore a mask, pointy mustache and very pointy chin. Drop the mustache of course. :D

That sounds a lot like V and his Guy Fawkes mask.
Aside from Mimes I can't think of anything that would be stereotypically french dress. Maybe a bandoleer of those stupid really long cigarettes on the end of a stick those upper class types are always smoking in movies?

[switchblade327]

She's looking good. I think you should explore different ideas with the vest and see if you couldn't come up with something more unique to the character. I mean, aside from the head she's not giving off much of a French vibe. You have the beret, artsy fartsy haircut and the scarf but below the neck she just turns into the Demoman with curves.

I'm not sure what regional fashion styles are the rage with French folk with a proclivity towards high explosives (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/Bomb_Voyage.png). But, something just doesn't seem complete in that area.

A friend suggested a striped shirt like mimes wear but I think that'd be too much, up there with a baguette and a poodle (she will have a cigarette in her mouth though). The thing is, the TF2 characters aren't really walking, talking cliches of where they're supposed to be from. I mean, who expected the Demoman to be Scottish until he first opened his mouth?

So I don't know if national identity is a problem that really needs to be addressed beyond what I've already done. If you have any suggestions for just making her more unique or appealing though, then I'm all ears. I'm thinking of flaring out the top of the boots a little and making her pants tighter.

[matsman]

Hej, hi all!

A few things I would correct:

the knees seem thin, very thin, maybe beef them up a bit, so she could actually be in an arena with all those burly man. Without falling down.

has her chin become longer? seems so... I don't really dig it.

Love the thigh strap, that is exactly what I was aiming at in my previous post... the red needed breaking up.

Looking at them side by side, I think you are doing a great job! But there are still some things remaining. I think the armor could still use some work: If one compares the two, she doesn't seem protected that much.

And I think her boots need the extra detail that is also found in the demoman

Finally I think proportionally the demoman isn't that overly stylised, your, (our) design is far more stylised, which is why she doesn't feel that good yet (at least I think so) Also maybe she could be a bit bigger overall (scale it up)

Oh and the tight pants could actually work, it is not as if the pants on the guy are that protective anyways. And talking about pants... is she wearing a catsuit underneath the armor? or an overall? or pants and shirt? if the last is the case you could possibly try to make a difference between top and bottom.
Also there is this skirt over pants thing that was a fashion some time ago, maybe that is a direction to follow? since there is already a "skirt" going on with the protective flap.

Okay that was thinking out loud. I completely agree on not going with the mime look or the thin moustache :P that's too obvious. Have you researched actual bomb armor, I remember you have maybe play a bit with that still, aahh, maybe not.

Seems quite okay actually. As far as I am concerned your nearly there.

Cheers!

[switchblade327]

Tighter pants, thicker knees (they were pretty bad before!), narrowed shoulder pads, weaker jaw (hadnt changed til now; I have a habit of strong-jawed women), made her umpires armor into a vest, stretched out the front flap to be more skirtlike. Textures hidden to open up more thoughts on the legs.

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/4203/demov5xj1.jpg

I like the skirt over pants/tights idea but she's too far along for those kinds of changes I think, plus skirts are a pain to get looking good on a game model that can run in 8 directions. I'm not sure what to do with the legs though. Capris would be good if she wasn't already wearing boots. I tried darker colored pants but it doesn't leave enough red exposed to make her team obvious so I think I need to stick with the jumpsuit design.

General consensus on the old baggy pants vs the new tight ones? I've not decided (knees will be thicker then before, regardless)

I had looked at real bomb armor but there isn't much room between 'flak jacket' and 'stay puffed marshmellow man' so I elaborated.

[matsman]

:) and so it goes on.

Okay I think the knees can be larger still, also side to side, not much but still.

For the legs/ boots how about giving her a pair of musketeers /pirate boots? you know with those flared tops that fall down? that gives you detail on the boots and something to break the line on the legs.
Otherwise I would suggest some steel noses or armour pads on the boots to get some more detail in the lower area. You could strap that across the ankle and get some much needed detail there.

and to the rest I say amen... looks very good, side to side and in grey.

I hope other people have some ideas too. Good luck!

[kromano]

What about a pair of tighter-fitting zipper boots. I notice a little notch in the side of the left boot that makes me think you could put a division seam like a zipper along there, then with either some simple geometry or a texture you could put together a set of boots similar to this random image I found

http://www.okokshoes.com/upload/upimg012%5CMember_9252.jpg

Horseback riding is pretty european, you could kind of give the pants an equestrian theme along with, which is usually a fairly form-fitting style.

[switchblade327]

The boots I used as reference were similar to the ones above except with less pronounced seems; hence the boots are so low-detail. They zip up the inseam so there's not much more detail. I've been slowly widening the tops in the interest of more shape to the leg but I don't think that's going to be the solution. The way her legs were before with the skinny boots and baggy pants was already kind of equestrian and I'm not sure it worked.

I think her ankles might be too thin for the strap to work well, plus that wouldn't be so easy to get deforming well. Steel toes might look strange on this style of boots as well. I think I'm going to play around with some kind of cuff. Not quite big buccaneer flares but along those lines.

Maybe like this but with a single tier of... whatever that stuff is called.
http://www.shoebuy.com/pi/minne/minne139395_33715_lg.jpg
I lived in Texas, I should know this. But yeah, one solid, non-shredded foldover might do it.

Thanks for the continued input. It's obviously helping.

[Clanker]

Hi switchblade327
I'm interested in modeling a tf2 character too. Could you explain me how you get the orignal tf2 character in your 3d package ? I'm a tf2 player but i'm not familiar with all this Hammer thing and i don't want to lose too much time on the export. I just can't find some sort of tutorial on it. thanks !

[kromano]

Hi switchblade327
I'm interested in modeling a tf2 character too. Could you explain me how you get the orignal tf2 character in your 3d package ? I'm a tf2 player but i'm not familiar with all this Hammer thing and i don't want to lose too much time on the export. I just can't find some sort of tutorial on it. thanks !

Hey Clanker. Feel free to PM me if you need any additonal help beyond this reply.

Hammer is JUST the level editor for Source games (Half-Life 2, TF2 etc). The model and texture tools are separate executables which are part of the SDK. Since, at this stage, you're only interested in importing I'll skip the steps for exporting and recompiling (a major headache for characters).

First, you gotta get a tool to extract files from the GCF packages in Steam. GCFScape (http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?p=26) is great for this. Find the package that contains the player models (team fortress 2 models.gcf I think) and open it up. Locate the player model you want and extract all the files that share its name. player.mdl, player.dx8, player.someotherextension. There's around 5 or 6 files per model if I remember correctly.

Second step is to turn the compiled MDL back into its source SMDs. I'm not sure if there are more modern tools around, but I still use Cannonfodder's MDL decompiler (http://www.chaosincarnate.net/cannonfodder/cftools.htm). His utility must be placed in the sourcesdk/bin/episode1/bin folder to work correctly. The decompiler has trouble with collison meshes on the newer MDL Format and frequently inverts the normals which is a problem if you're going to recompile the model without changing it. This is a fairly common task when a model already exists in the SDK but you want to retexture it without replacing the existing texture.

So anyway, decompile the MDL file to a new folder where you'll get a messs of .SMD files along with a .QC for recompiling. You're only interested in the SMDs at this point. From here you'll need an appropriate SMD importer for your software package, or if you use the free XSI with the Valve devkit you're already set. Cannonfodder has some plugins available for 3d Studio Max. I'm positive there are importers for Maya and possibly Lightwave but I don't use those suites so I'm not sure where to find them. A quick google and perusal of the Source SDK Wiki (http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/SDK_Docs) should net you what you need to know from here.

Back to the thread, how's the model coming? Any progress or still adjusting to life across the ocean?

[Clanker]

Woo ok
A big thanks to you ! :)
I think this might be useful to other people too.
And sorry for the little "out of context" . I'll pm you if i have a pb.

[kromano]

Woo ok
A big thanks to you ! :)
I think this might be useful to other people too.
And sorry for the little "out of context" . I'll pm you if i have a pb.

I'm glad to be able to help people when it comes to dealing with the Source engine. Switchblade and I have had many discussions about how difficult it is to find help when you run into a problem, the Source community seems very closed off and not helpful. It's frustrating at the best of times.

I managed to solve a lot of problems on my own and in doing so learned a lot about how the Source engine works, but I have gaps in my knowledge when it comes to compiling character models and the entire Source animation system. If you have a question and you think I can help, don't hesitate to PM me.

[switchblade327]

It's a bit of a process and I don't really have time to write a full tutorial. However, I know what you mean about what a pain it is to find this info. I haven't found the Source modding community to be terribly helpful so I'm going to post a quickie version to spite them. But I can't offer tech support if this doesn't work.

You'll need to google the programs I mention (all are free). Here's some info to get you started:

1. Get a program called GCFScape. It will allow you to open up the .gcf files that assets are packed up in. The ones you need are in \steam\steamapps. From there you can chose what to extract. Directories are pretty self explanatory. Models and animations are in .mdl format.

2. Get a program called Notepad++. ***Windows Notepad will not work!!!*** Use it to open any .mdl file you want to import to whatever program.

3. (this is the tricky step; it's a hack to fix changes they made in Orange Box) The first text in each model .smd should be either IDST0 or IDST. (the period is part of it). Whatever is behind IDST, delete it and replace it with a comma (,). Save and close.

4. Get a program called Cannonfodder's mdldecompiler. Run it, uncheck "steam file access" (it brought up errors for me), then use it to extract your .mdl into the many .smd files it's composed of (1 file each for lods, physic/ragdoll, every single animation).

5. Find an .smd importer for your 3d software of choice. Softimage should be easy, Max and Maya not so much, since the importers made by Cannonfodder are no longer supported and only work for old versions.

Some people have installed Blender which has an smd importer, then exported to a format readable by Max/Maya. I reinstalled Max 7 and used the Cannonfodder importer then saved it and opened it in Max 9. Make sure you're working with a version of the software that has an .smd exporter if you ever want to get your model into the Source engine (Max 9 is supported for export but not import).

Again, this is what I pieced together from the few nice people who have written up good, public Source docs (which includes a handful of modders and not Valve). It worked for me but I cannot provide tech support. You might have to poke around a bit but I've given you the solution for all the tricky steps.

EDIT: Well, THAT was time well spent :P I meant to work on the model tonight too. Kromano, it's nearly done after going back and redoing a bit of geometry (and ruining my UVs). I'll post again soon.

[switchblade327]

Also, I would implore you NOT to PM any questions you have but post them somewhere (maybe not in my model thread though :D No, I don't actually mind). PMs hoard information that should be shared publicly. You might unwittingly help someone else later on down the line.

[switchblade327]

Minor tweaks. Fixed the boot problem, little things with the sleeves, back and hair. I think the boot thing is going to be rollover of the boot top, a bit lighter color then the boot itself. The second render made me realize I should add more definition to the armor at the back of the neck and fix that smoothing/welding problem. Hands are the last major hurdle and they're driving me nuts.


http://img392.imageshack.us/img392/7262/v601ib4.jpg

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/6149/v602jt8.jpg

[Clanker]

Ok I'm done with the medic...
Grace to both of you.
I guess i can get all animations too. I'll see this later.

I've found this
http://files.filefront.com/SMD+3dsMax9zip/;11019686;/fileinfo.html
it's an smd importer/exporter
It seems to work on max 2008

Hands are a difficult part. Look at your own hands as model (or maybe take a look at Alyx Vance hands ;) ) Use ref as background...

[switchblade327]

Ok I'm done with the medic...
Grace to both of you.
I guess i can get all animations too. I'll see this later.

I've found this
http://files.filefront.com/SMD+3dsMax9zip/;11019686;/fileinfo.html
it's an smd importer/exporter
It seems to work on max 2008

Hands are a difficult part. Look at your own hands as model (or maybe take a look at Alyx Vance hands ;) ) Use ref as background...

Nice find.

So when do we get to see your medic? Is it based off Kirt's concept?

[kromano]

Nice find.

So when do we get to see your medic? Is it based off Kirt's concept?

Ooh that would be sexy! Kirt's medic was hot.

Switchblade, the boot cuffs seem to suffer from too low poly. I know the demonman boots are about the same, but they're a smaller cuff so it's not as noticeable. Those edges might do with a little bit more rounding.

[switchblade327]

Ooh that would be sexy! Kirt's medic was hot.

Switchblade, the boot cuffs seem to suffer from too low poly. I know the demonman boots are about the same, but they're a smaller cuff so it's not as noticeable. Those edges might do with a little bit more rounding.

Gah! You're right, I'm on it.

[Clanker]

Yep it will be based on the awesome Kirt's medic concept. For now I just have the original medic in max :p
I have (as you guys) not much free time, so i guess, it will take a while.
regards

[switchblade327]

Yep it will be based on the awesome Kirt's medic concept. For now I just have the original medic in max :p
I have (as you guys) not much free time, so i guess, it will take a while.
regards

Nice man. It'll be cool to see how this shapes up.

[switchblade327]

Not dead yet (in game, in fact!)

http://img404.imageshack.us/img404/5021/hlmvdmcd9.jpg

Now that it (sort of) works, I'm going to start doing animations. Once I can prove that works, I want to make her face fit the TF2 style a bit more. Something is also going to need to be done about her hair being 1-sided.

[switchblade327]

One of these things is not like the other...
http://img66.imageshack.us/img66/2273/headslm3.jpg

Hopefully seeing them all side by side will help me match the style better before I do any facial animation.

[kromano]

Though I mentioned it to you on Steam chat, I'll say it here again. I think you've got a tough job ahead of you if you want to match her face to the TF2 style closely. The male characters had such distinct and pronounced features, like strong jaws, sharp cuts in the cheekbones and those oversized hook-noses. I think you'll have a hard time duplicating that feel for a female face... or at least any female you want to not look like a man after.

Oh there's an idea. Just take the demoman's head as-is and put it on her body. That'd work, right? So sexy....

[Swizzle]

I'd suggest widening the mouth, bringing the eyes a little closer together and making sure you can see that she actually has nostrils.

[kromano]

Looking at her hair, I'm thinking that a single strand or clump that's disconnected from the main hair hanging down from the front would look nice... if you understand what the hell I'm talking about.

You've got that U shape from side to side around her head, then on one side put in a spike of hair partially obscuring one eye. It'd be fun to animate and would add a little more character to her face, I think. (or maybe I'm just being really cliche)

[CrimsonGT]

Hey Switchblade,

From a newbie artist standpoint, your model looks great. I have been a huge TF2 fanatic since 3am the day the game came out, and I am huge into the orange box modding scene. Considering the only female model I had seen done was a very manly looking scout posted on FPS Banana, this one caught me by surprise.

Just to give you a heads up, I have been trying to get into modelling, but I am a code monkey by trade. I have been working solo on the first completely game changing server side TF2 mod for a little over 10 months now (coding/mapping and trying to hunt down artist/webdesigners is a full time job).

Anyways, to cut to the chase, atleast around the coding forums it is believed that both player models and view models are handled completely client side in game (unlike the old source games where they could be changed server side). With some tweaking, I have managed to change the view models of players weapons to that of other weapons. However, there are no models released for TF2 that I can actually use to give a definite yes or no to this question. (On the coding forums we get 5-20 threads a week from people asking for a plugin to change models).

I attempted to decompile some of the models a while back, and recompile them with new paths so that I could get a true answer as to wether this was possible or not. My recompile failed miserably due to CannonFodder's decompiler being from 2005, I think it tends to screw up the SMDs. Anyways, I am curious if you would be interested in helping me give a definite answer to the modding community (I would love to see this girl in game too).

[switchblade327]

I'd suggest widening the mouth, bringing the eyes a little closer together and making sure you can see that she actually has nostrils.

Funnily enough, that's exactly what I did the night after my last post. Seeing them all lined up like that is where I noticed that they all have pretty long, wide mouths so I made hers match a bit more. I brought her eyes together slightly, added a little more angularity to the jaw, smoothed out the slight ridge in the middle of her forehead and messed with the nostrils a bit. I was going to post screens but I didn't and now I'm at work.

I'm a lot happier with it now but I might give it some more attention later, before I do morph targets. I might try and make her look more like the French pop goddess, Alizee but I think a likeness is probably beyond my skills.


Anyways, to cut to the chase, atleast around the coding forums it is believed that both player models and view models are handled completely client side in game (unlike the old source games where they could be changed server side). With some tweaking, I have managed to change the view models of players weapons to that of other weapons. However, there are no models released for TF2 that I can actually use to give a definite yes or no to this question. (On the coding forums we get 5-20 threads a week from people asking for a plugin to change models).

I attempted to decompile some of the models a while back, and recompile them with new paths so that I could get a true answer as to wether this was possible or not. My recompile failed miserably due to CannonFodder's decompiler being from 2005, I think it tends to screw up the SMDs. Anyways, I am curious if you would be interested in helping me give a definite answer to the modding community (I would love to see this girl in game too).

Thanks, I'm glad you like the model. My goal was to make a nice looking female who was neither butch nor skanky.

I'm certain I'll run into some issues with .qc files and especially with recompiling, so if you can help me out with that stuff I'd be lend my Demogirl as a crash test dummy. What exactly do you need?

I was actually going to ping the guy who did the female scout (he got it working in game) but it sounds like he gets nagged a lot about it and may not be interested in helping. He is also using the scout's animations and maybe skeleton, which is a bit easier then what I'm attempting (100% custom skeleton and animations).

[switchblade327]

Looking at her hair, I'm thinking that a single strand or clump that's disconnected from the main hair hanging down from the front would look nice... if you understand what the hell I'm talking about.

You've got that U shape from side to side around her head, then on one side put in a spike of hair partially obscuring one eye. It'd be fun to animate and would add a little more character to her face, I think. (or maybe I'm just being really cliche)

I agree that her hair needs something else and I actually moved it to cover more of her forehead on one side but a hair stand might be too much. She already has a bone or two more then the demoman and plenty of opportunity (read: much more work for me) for secondary animation with 6 grenades, the satchel and her crotch armor flap. I also separated her beret from her head so it can bounce when she runs and hopefully will be able to remove it in taunts, gestures and her ragdoll/death animations.

[CrimsonGT]

His model works as just a drag and drop replacement for clients. Unforunately it uses the same paths (for model/materials) as the normal scout, so I cant use it to test unless hes interested in recompiling it with different paths, which I doubt since I cant seem to find any contact info for him. All the custom stuff should be fine as long as it has the same names as the original animations and attachment points in there as well. I will do my best to help, but like I said im not that experienced with graphics, I just know mostly what I have read :)

[switchblade327]

His model works as just a drag and drop replacement for clients. Unforunately it uses the same paths (for model/materials) as the normal scout, so I cant use it to test unless hes interested in recompiling it with different paths, which I doubt since I cant seem to find any contact info for him. All the custom stuff should be fine as long as it has the same names as the original animations and attachment points in there as well. I will do my best to help, but like I said im not that experienced with graphics, I just know mostly what I have read :)

The graphics side isn't really what concerns me. I need to massage the face, paint better textures and create a whole lot of animations that match the demo's speed and timing; it's time consuming but I know how to do all that. It's the tech side (.qc files, recompiling, eye tracking etc) that intimidate me. I have the original demoman's decompiled .qc but like you said, the old mdldecompiler may've messed it up.

When that's all done, all that remains is writing a big brick of dialogue and finding a nice sounding girl with a French accent :)

[kromano]

Hey, check this out. Too many bones? Too many objects to dynamically animate? Let the engine handle it for you!

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$jigglebone
Marking bones within your model’s skeleton as "jiggle bones" tells the game engine to dynamically simulate them during runtime, allowing for realistic secondary motions such as wiggling antennas, bouncy flesh, floppy ears, and so on.

[switchblade327]

Hey, check this out. Too many bones? Too many objects to dynamically animate? Let the engine handle it for you!

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$jigglebone

Oh, that's awesome. I was going to use a bunch of constraints and spring controllers for the scarf and grenades but this could be a better way to go. Good timing too!


The face revisions:
http://img236.imageshack.us/img236/6889/face7no6.jpg

I'm still not happy with it but it's going to have to wait until I'm sure I can get this in game.

[kromano]

Huge improvements. Liking what I see. I think her neck should be a little thinner, but maybe it's just the scarf or something.

[CrimsonGT]

Yup, fantastic improvements. I agree with the neck though, looks a little thick for a female, especially an attractive one.

[switchblade327]

With lots of help from Kromano, I present: Ragdoll demogirl! (never mind the levitating beret)

http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/5814/demo01pq8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/1826/demo03gk4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


She's a dirty girl...
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/2439/demo02vx9.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

(http://g.imageshack.us/img134/demo02vx9.jpg/1/)

[switchblade327]

Playable demo girl! (needs just a little work)

http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/4431/demo4ql3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

(http://g.imageshack.us/img110/demo4ql3.jpg/1/)

[CodeVeroby]

I recommend you to overlay an ambient occlusion map on the diffuse and add a specular map for her to make her more shaded like the rest of the characters, right now she looks weird because she looks flat shaded !

[switchblade327]

I recommend you to overlay an ambient occlusion map on the diffuse and add a specular map for her to make her more shaded like the rest of the characters, right now she looks weird because she looks flat shaded !

Yeah, you're right. I haven't touched the shaders yet (nothing but the placeholder diffuse map actually) but it's on my list to figure out. If you have any idea how to do this in Source, I'm all ears :D I was going to start digging around for that info this week.

Also, if anyone know how the eyes work in TF2, I'd love to hear it. I found a few years old writeup on using geometry eyes but TF2 uses eyes as part of the face geometry (not hemispheres) with some kind of projection map for the pupils.

[switchblade327]

Well, that was shockingly easy:
http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/7549/demo5of5.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


Mind you, this is still with the temp diffuse map (the original TF2 diffuse maps are more painterly; mine is solid colors for now) and the demoman's normal maps so it still doesn't look quite right. As far as I can tell, the Demoman only has the two maps (diffuse and normal)+skin variants, spy invisibility effect and pyro burning effect.

On to the eyes!

[CrimsonGT]

That looks absolutely amazing mate. Are you using the bone system and existing attachment points/animations from the male demoman? If so this will make it much easier to get into game, and I look forward to finding out if it can actually be made a playable character serverside.

[switchblade327]

That looks absolutely amazing mate. Are you using the bone system and existing attachment points/animations from the male demoman? If so this will make it much easier to get into game, and I look forward to finding out if it can actually be made a playable character serverside.

Thanks. Right now it's using the Demoman's animations, which is why she looks like a monster from Silent Hill. She has the same weapons bones/weapon hierarchy as the demoman so she should be able to use the original gun correctly and her skeleton follows the same naming conventions which is why the original animations will play (poorly).

Otherwise her skeleton is quite different in structure and hierarchy. She has bones for each grenade (which are linked differently because of their layout), her satchel, her crotch plate, her cigarette, her scarf, her hair and her beret, so that's quite a big difference. It's still less bones then the medic though so I don't expect bone count to be a major problem.

She will eventually have 100% original animations to replace the Demo's.

[kromano]

I'm looking forward to seeing if you have better luck with those blends. I'm glad you sto... used the existing shader without my posting what felt like a pointless suggestion to do so. You'll have to generate your own normal map, though, eventually.

As it stands I think you're about as far as I ever got. My character was using existing HL2 animations and had that same silent hill/exorcist movement going on, though not quite as violent as yours. Her legs were criss-crossed and her spine was rotated 180 degrees, but she still stood upright and vaguely looked human... Your custom anims are where this model is going to really shine, however. Can't wait.

[switchblade327]

Custom idle! Woohoo!


http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/884/dffsdfsdqs3.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img147.imageshack.us/img147/dffsdfsdqs3.jpg/1/w400.png (http://g.imageshack.us/img147/dffsdfsdqs3.jpg/1/)

This one works much better as a screenshot then in motion I'm afraid. I'm having some weirdness with the animation layers and predictably, some explosions with the deltas.

[switchblade327]

These incremental updates are really just for me and for those of you who've also suffered through the Source engine and know what an accomplishment this stuff really is.

Here's lookin' at you, kid!

http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/2861/eyesyy8.jpg (http://imageshack.us)


They're not perfect yet; they have no constraints so while they follow the camera perfectly, they'll also easily roll back into the head.

[Swizzle]

Ohhhh yes! Her face is looking excellent; much, much improved over the previous version and overall very cute.

You may want to come up with a slightly different solution for the eyelashes, I think. Were I doing this, I'd probably go with a solid shape on the upper lid (much like you have right now) and eyeliner textured onto the bottom lid. Your mileage may vary.

[switchblade327]

Ohhhh yes! Her face is looking excellent; much, much improved over the previous version and overall very cute.

You may want to come up with a slightly different solution for the eyelashes, I think. Were I doing this, I'd probably go with a solid shape on the upper lid (much like you have right now) and eyeliner textured onto the bottom lid. Your mileage may vary.

Thanks man! The plan is to make her upper and lower eyelashes alpha maps when I do a real pass on textures and I will also be texturing eyeliner and maybe some blush. If that still doesn't look right, I'll get rid of some of that geometry (I think I'm going to paint the texture after animations and 2nd pass rigging but before facial/vertex animation) But the texture part is proven tech so it's on hold until I get her to stop exploding so much.

[kromano]

Thanks man! The plan is to make her upper and lower eyelashes alpha maps when I do a real pass on textures and I will also be texturing eyeliner and maybe some blush. If that still doesn't look right, I'll get rid of some of that geometry (I think I'm going to paint the texture after animations and 2nd pass rigging but before facial/vertex animation) But the texture part is proven tech so it's on hold until I get her to stop exploding so much.
OMGOMOGMOGMOGM EYES! That's so awesome! I'll probably be bugging you for help on that one, assuming I ever get a character back to that stage. Soooo awesome. I agree with Swizzle, her face is looking really great now. I don't think you should go with alpha mapped eyelashes though, I think the solid blocked colour works much better in a cartoon world.

[WyattHarris]

Wow, I haven't checked this guy for a while now. Tremendous progress on her overall look. Checking the date I hope this isn't abandoned because it's looking really good.

[CampinCarl]

True Wyatt.

OP, you might want to take a look at this, it might help you.

http://www.fpsbanana.com/tuts/8485

[switchblade327]

Thanks guys. It's not dead; it was just shelved as I was stuck trying to get a 100% custom skeleton working.

This new tutorial looks really cool but still, from what I've found the only people who've solved the problem I'm having (getting custom additive animations working correctly in Orange Box-era .qc files used to compile *_animations.mdl) are Valve themselves. Replacing meshes only without changing the skeleton is a much simpler process, especially for a character with a mask (this pyro and the female engy someone did).

The real new hope for this project is the freshly released Left4Dead SDK source which include .qc files that reflect a newer version of the Source engine. I need to jump back in the saddle and start digging through those.

[CampinCarl]

sorry for the bump, but that's great news!

[kromano]

Any progress since they released the Heavy via the SDK? Somehow I doubt it came with additional documentation. I haven't actually looked at it yet to be honest. I'm hoping you figure it out so you can show me after.

[switchblade327]

Any progress since they released the Heavy via the SDK? Somehow I doubt it came with additional documentation. I haven't actually looked at it yet to be honest. I'm hoping you figure it out so you can show me after.

I took a look but I've been busy with work and a trip to Japan. It looks workable, though the new hitch is that they switched the file formats from .smd to .dmx for everything. I think .smds will still work but I haven't been able to test it just yet.

[switchblade327]

Naturally, the rest of the source files would get released the weekend before things get really busy at work. I guess it's time to stock up on the coffee...

She's definitely more petite then the Demoman but it still might work with VAC if I can squeeze her into his hitboxes.

EDIT: I've also verified that the old .mdl compiler can process both .smds AND .dmxs. I've already thrown her on his rig and got it roughly working, with only some orientation issues on the leg bones.

(textures still very placeholder)

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/3692/screen01hr.jpg

[kromano]

So I take it that you've abandoned a custom skeleton in place of the original demoman's rig? Or did you find a way to get things running on your rig from the source files? I wonder if I could nip a skeleton for one of the thinner characters and reuse it to resurrect my mod...

[switchblade327]

So I take it that you've abandoned a custom skeleton in place of the original demoman's rig? Or did you find a way to get things running on your rig from the source files? I wonder if I could nip a skeleton for one of the thinner characters and reuse it to resurrect my mod...

Hell no, never surrender! Her skeleton is custom; I just have them side by side because the orientations of her leg bones don't match his so it twists the leg mesh 90 degrees when she plays his idle.

It might not matter once I do custom anims but it could cause problems with the leg IK so I'm making sure the bones are aimed the right way.

[kromano]

hrmmm, i don't think i can do that with the 3d studio biped, the joints are too restricted. i should really just get over it and fully learn another 3d package.

[switchblade327]

hrmmm, i don't think i can do that with the 3d studio biped, the joints are too restricted. i should really just get over it and fully learn another 3d package.

You could build a max rig that works just fine or you could even set up biped to drive another skeleton. What matters is the actual xyz orientation of the bones which biped doesn't allow control over. It's normally a non-issue unless you have to match an existing skeleton's setup.

When I'm ready to animate, I'll either use MotionBuilder or animate a biped and retarget it all through MB; I already have a skinned version for both the skeleton and biped.

[kromano]

Yeah that's basically the problem. I only have a choice of the Biped or bones, and I don't have a rig constructed from bones nor am I ANY good at building them. I'd never thought about using the biped to control the bones however, it's a genius idea! By that respect I could use any type of object to control the skeleton and link it to the biped for motion. Well, maybe not... the exporter probably wouldn't recognize what was going on if I used objects other than bones or dummy helpers.

[switchblade327]

Yeah that's basically the problem. I only have a choice of the Biped or bones, and I don't have a rig constructed from bones nor am I ANY good at building them. I'd never thought about using the biped to control the bones however, it's a genius idea! By that respect I could use any type of object to control the skeleton and link it to the biped for motion. Well, maybe not... the exporter probably wouldn't recognize what was going on if I used objects other than bones or dummy helpers.

If you can't rig, a biped driven skeleton would be your best bet. It's not too hard to set up. Link constraints or something like that; it's been a while since I've done it.

Now the only reason I'm bothering is to match TF2s IK setups and mess with the Demo.qc as little as possible. If you're not looking to replace assets like I am, a biped should work fine.

[kromano]

If you're not looking to replace assets like I am, a biped should work fine.You'd think so, but remember we've been facing the exact same problems when we get into the blending animations part of the QC. My base mesh and animations all came from the same skeleton, yet it suffered the same bizarre distortions when it came time to move around. If I can match the valve orientations as much as possible it'll be more a matter of tweaking than fully recreating.

I have this feeling that the engine rotates to match some other axis automatically so my already off axis' are being further twisted after loading into the game.

[switchblade327]

I have this feeling that the engine rotates to match some other axis automatically so my already off axis' are being further twisted after loading into the game.

It will rotate and scale your skeleton to match the animation that is playing but I don't think it goes beyond that. The only think that should modify an .mdl post compile are the IK settings, which will blow up if axis' don't match. People have successfully modded Source engine with Max/biped characters so I know it is possible.

But yeah, replacing assets is the safer bet for sure.

[kromano]

The only think that should modify an .mdl post compile are the IK settings, which will blow up if axis' don't match.I think that's where my problem comes in at that point then. I don't understand IK well enough to know what I'm doing there, on top of which I'm not sure if I was able to match it up properly or if I commented it out completely. Either way it just barfed over everything.

It's really a shame we never were able to get any information from those mod groups about how they rigged their model ):

Side note, I just looked back at the history and the last two pages are just us back and forth. This feels like a proxy for our Steam conversations.

[switchblade327]

Side note, I just looked back at the history and the last two pages are just us back and forth. This feels like a proxy for our Steam conversations.

If more people's Steam conversations were publicly documented this well, we might not have had such a hard time getting stuff working :)

Here's what she looks like playing the Demoman's idle with her leg bones not oriented correctly:
http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/96c23f98be.jpg

Skeleton is correct; just not the base pose/reference model. It's strange that Source is the first engine I've seen that scales the skeleton to match the animations. Though I'm pretty sure there's a .qc flag to disable this.

[kromano]

It's strange that Source is the first engine I've seen that scales the skeleton to match the animations. Though I'm pretty sure there's a .qc flag to disable this.I thought it was the opposite, to be honest. I was sure that the the QC flag was there to tell it to scale the bones to the animation. Maybe the flag just makes it more accurate...

You're getting close, I can FEEEEEL it.

[switchblade327]

I thought it was the opposite, to be honest. I was sure that the the QC flag was there to tell it to scale the bones to the animation. Maybe the flag just makes it more accurate...


Nope, it scales to match by default (it's hard to tell in the screenshot but she's being stretched to the Demoman's proportions when an animation is applied). It's actually good since it'll keep animations from ever playing incorrectly.

I dug around last night and the feature/.qc command I was thinking of is called 'motion mapper' and is specifically applying one skeleton's animation to another with different proportions. But it looks like it has to be done per-animation so I'm not going to bother since the Demoman's animations will all soon be replaced anyway. I'll get her working correctly but stretched then start replacing key animations (primary idle, primary run, etc) for testing.

[switchblade327]

Orientation and texture issues fixed and she's working in game! (A bit stretched out though).
http://img682.imageshack.us/img682/9648/shot01.jpg


http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/2834/shot02.jpg

Next steps are replacing some basic animations, trying to get face morphs working and getting the eyes working again.

[kromano]

Oh man, there's just no telling how excited your progress makes me. Knowing that you've figured it out to the stage of being able to build your own animations now means that there's still hope for my old project too.

I just really, really hope that animation blending doesn't explode again. I managed to get roughly that far with my character before those mysterious "deltas" ruined my life. I eagerly await your next step in the process.