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Post #1361
Woo hoo! Working collision model, baby!
Had the damndest time figuring out how the whole concave collision thing worked. I knew concave collision models were made up of a series of convex objects arranged to create the EFFECT of concavity, but while my approximations fleshed it out alright, the compiler kept telling me I had 2 dimensional geometry and that it was scrapping a concave object for a "shrink-wrapped" convex object. It still worked in GMod, but you couldn't stand on the platform or anything.
Eventually found out my collision objects needed their smoothing groups to be consistent, and this ended up being the cause of the error. A quick fix, and voila, Rhonda can use that water tower for shelter from ol' Stumpy :-)
... of course, she couldn't use that ladder, as ladder functions are built into map entities, lol.
Also, I worked around the material settings for this a while, not satisfied with how the cubemaps played havoc with the shading. I got frustrated eventually and deleted the Cubemap material setting entirely, and... well, it rid me of that damned reflection. I'll be sure to experiment with that on the creature models too. Those damned environmental cubemaps are best used for surfaces that WOULD end up being somewhat reflective, like glass or shiny metal or tile or water. If I can do away with those entirely, it might really add something (ironically) to their overall look in the engine.
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I thought that said "Erection"
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So, animations on the Grablet are finished, which (until further notice) concludes the part of this where I animate the creatures :-)
There won't be a video, seeing as really there aren't enough animations to justify one. It would be like showing animations for the headcrab in a video. There's nothing overtly impressive about them anyway, they WERE only featured in a single scene after all.
Currently, while I don't think it'll be used for my school project (it's just not detailed enough, and the textures will be VERY simple) I AM currently modeling Burt's Grizzly Big Boar .50 Cal for a SWEP.
There will be a bit of a learning curve where this is concerned. Never modeled a SWEP. Tried modeling a gun once, a USP Match specifically, and I eventually gave up on it, and I used the actual damned gun for reference since I own a fullmetal airsoft version of one. That was a while back though, and I was modeling THAT gun to be photoreal.
Still, guns and vehicles are so fiddly and precisely made, it can be a serious pain in the ass to model them correctly. The Grizzly is strange too, with the sucker being a single shot, one round loaded into the back by removing the buttstock and jamming a round into a slot at the end of it. Will be one of the more unique reloading animations when it's finished... What sucks is that finding reference for the reloading mechanisms is a pain, and I want to get those right. It's an obscure gun, to say the least. Good thing is I have Tremors 2 here at home, and I know there's a good shot in there of Burt loading it just before the infamous scene of him fucking destroying a Shrieker with it.
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"Jesus Christ...! Smell like that cuss is dead??
Jesus is right...
Sorry for the delay folks. Been REAL busy on the Grizzly, but it's still not in what I'd refer to as a "presentable" state. It's my first gun, and while the model itself went well, texturing this sucker has been another story. If any of you guys know how to make stainless steel look good in a video game texture, let me know... For now it just looks whitish and matted and lazy. Of course, the normal map and spec map will do it worlds of good once I get them looking right.
Ah, but you don't want to hear that right now...
As you can see in the above pic, I've used some free time between modelling the Grizzly to get started on the gore work. Texture edit worked out pretty nice, and I think I got the orange-ish blood and guts looking the way you'd expect. This is the split-open model, to be used both when Graboids produce Shriekers, and for when it falls to its death. I know, the smashed-looking head texture doesn't quite make sense in the context of a Shrieker birth, but I hope you'll forgive that. Maybe I can make an alternate texture and Silverlan can swap skins according to context?
Anyway, it was a BEAR to get this all going. The modeling and texturing weren't actually too bad, but god oh god... You can't see from this angle, but I put some alpha-mapped (transparency-mapped) bits of tangled gore inside the body cavity so it wouldn't look too clean and gave it a fleshy, disturbing look. I had to figure out how alphas worked in Source, make separate VMT's for each alpha sprite, then they behaved one-sidedly, so I had to duplicate them and flip the normals so they looked right in the game. All manner of saving and resaving and file naming conventions and saving into alpha channels. Plus having to re-rig the entire Graboid model since I lost the rigging in modelling the damaged bits. Some of the rig is still wonky, actually. Needs tweaking. The ragdoll also works, but the physics model is giving me some grief and will need a more proper re-tooling. Admittedly it's a lot simpler since the tongues have been deleted from this model (now that the mouth leads into the body cavity, finding something to do with the tongues is a bit pointless).
But yeah, easily this will be the hardest bit of gore to do (I hope) and from here it will just be body parts. Save for a few limbs that will still be ragdolls, I won't have to deal much with recreating rigging and stuff.
Oh, I'll also mention, before I forget, that Silverlan is now in position of ALL the material for the creatures. Models, textures, animations, sounds, everything. From Graboid to Grablet, it's all been sent down the pipe and he can work with it at his leisure. Naturally I'll send him the gore stuff when it's done, but for now all the creatures are ready and being turned into fully-fledged snpcs :-)
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*Sigh*
So guys, you want to know something about fuckups?
They always appear well after you should have noticed them, and at a point in which their discovery is embarrassing and heartbreaking.
Well, turns out I fucked-up the Graboid somehow. I'm not talking about this split version either, I mean the one that's probably sitting in its ragdoll pack right this very second. Somehow, at some point, I managed to resize the bone of the right mandible so it was several "inches" shorter than the left one. I don't know how I managed not to notice it all this time, I know the version used in the render animations aren't like that. But somehow it happened. I know it must have happened to the reference file, because after checking the current graboid in the model viewer, I noticed that in ALL the animations, the same deformity was present.
The good news is, I can fix this rather quickly. Max has gotten a lot better with history dependent stuff like skins and UVW coordinates, so on the split graboid, I found that I could select the affected vertices, use the mandible bone as a pivot point, and correctly resize and even re-ROTATE the geometry back where it needed to be, with no ill effect to the mapping or ruining the rig.
I know it's as dead-on as it can be, because I copied and mirrored the geometry of the part that wasn't affected, and it all lines up. It might have been easier just to resize and rotate the actual bone, but since the animations were ALL effected (and knowing how well the tentacles worked in bone resizing animations) I had a feeling the animations would have just "fixed" the bone back to the broken version, so going straight for the geometry precludes the possibility of such an event.
I just feel embarrassed, thinking that anyone who downloaded the packs up till now, or even Silverlan who is currently using a broken model, are seeing my colossal fuckup laid bare to see. I'm really sorry guys, and it'll be fixed pronto.
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I rarely noticed the deformity...all I can say is I don't mind really...as long as I can use the Tremors npc's I'm okay ^w^
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"Grizzly single-shot BMG based on a Word War I anti-tank cartridge."
This is the model as it was presented for class.
It's missing its reload parts, which need to be textured and stuff, and that normal map is based on object-space, and wouldn't work in Source, so it'll need to be remade. That, plus edges need to be defined a little more in the texture, but thought you folks should see it.
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Yeesh...
Well, officially on Spring Break now, and done with my work for the weekend, and my family activity for Easter (despite being an atheist), including watching several two-decade old family films of when my brothers and I were infants for three...fucking...hours (upon which I learned disturbingly that my father had more or less the exact same voice as me in the early 90's) .
So yeah, totally have free time to work now for a full five days at LEAST. I've spent tonight making gibs for the Graboid and getting them in-game. I forgot to make two of them into static props, and my severed tentacle is a bit spastic, so they'll need some relatively minor fixes, but Graboid-specific gibs are almost entirely done, and I'll get cracking on the others tomorrow.
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Another night, another set of gibs done. The Shrieker's this time. Always amazes me how damn long something so simple can take. All the nonsense with setting up files and creating VTF's and making sure the texture plugged in to the model has the same name as the VMT you use.
AssBlaster gib is next. I plan for the AB to more or less explode if it gets a hard hit on its abdomen where the flammable chemicals are produced. For the gib, I'm taking inspiration from the Boomer in Left 4 Dead, in how whenever a Boomer explodes, nothing is left but the bloody, ragged lower half of its body. Same idea, but with its backside blown off and the ragged body looking somewhat like a banana peel. This'll be a tougher gib, because it's almost the full ragdoll save for the bits that blew off, but nothing I can't handle.
Also been researching things like how weapons and vehicles work in Source. The idea of making vehicles later on, like Earl's truck, Burt's army truck, the Cat or (fuck help us) Desert Jack's stupid tour vehicle is appealing, but I have to weigh the worthiness of something like that, given from opening the buggy in the model viewer, vehicles in Source are very fiddly and specific by nature, and I've yet to find a comprehensive "how-to" guide involving them.
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Well, while posting nightly progress is feeling as pointless as talking to my dog about my day, given I'm not sure anyone is even checking this thread anymore, I'll tell you that Silverlan received my fixed Graboid model, and I finished the gib for the AssBlaster to boot.
This leaves a few generic gibs I can use for any creature, but I'm suspending work on this for the week until I finish modelling my vehicle for class. Unfortunately, having used two projects to do Tremors themed stuff already (combining business with pleasure, as it were) I can't use this opportunity to do a Tremors vehicle. While the Grizzly wasn't obvious, per se, I've been encouraged to try something perhaps more "sci-fi" for this project to prove I have some range. So of course, I'm making the Normandy SR2 from Mass Effect.
Yeah, not going to make any waves in the prop-making department, seeing as I'm pretty sure the ACTUAL Normandy model has already been ported to GMod. Still, it won't likely take as long to model as I'm thinking, but I have to allow time before I squander all of it to this project.
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Nah, I'm still checking this thread every couple of days, these look awesome. Keep up the good work!
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Any progress yet?
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OK, now that is awesome. Running for your life from a graboid trying to eat you sounds terrifying.
I would love to see this in GMod.
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Not since finishing the main gibs. I want to still do some entrails and stuff. I fucked around with the particle editor a bit, but that thing is just a pain in the ass, pure and simple. Maybe I'll figure it out, maybe I won't. Mostly trying to reduce poor Silverlan's workload.
I'm mostly stuck working on increasingly more difficult school projects, like the model of the Normandy due this Monday. And then I have my final, which is to model a game environment with a strict poly-limit, and that means modelling SEVERAL props.
Odds are, I could be kinda' booked till the end of May. The good things though, is regardless of what I get done right now, Silverlan could code the entire Graboid life-cycle with what he currently has. Everything else at this point is just dressing and extras.
So yeah, no worries. Whatever happens from here on in, you folks will get your snpcs :-)
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I dont want to sound pushy but how far r u its eating me alive i cant wait and what else do u still need to do
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simply incredible
i will see the end of this project
never thought it would take 3 1/2 to 4 years but hey as long as it gets done
great job
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I hope to see this and gain it...cause I always wanted to have the Tremors experience once in my life...to actually face against Graboids, Shriekers and Assblasters...yeah...I hope it becomes ready over the summer...anyways J-Dude...congratulations on making one of the most famous NPC's of all time...many people will enjoy this ^w^
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any progress?
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Be patient...the owner of this great establishment will inform us when his friend, the npc script writer, has completed the said characters
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I know, just checking in, haven't checked the thread in awhile...
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Woo! Summer break baby!
And here's my final for my 3D modeling/texturing class, which I imagine you'll approve of.
Naturally this is pretty under-detailed as-is, and given I had a 10K polygon limit for this project, this scene is more of a set than anything else. Those two walls of Chang's Market might as well be bits of plywood on little horizontal stilts, because there's nothing behind them. And naturally, no interior yet.
But it's not a bad place to start, and thankfully some of the clutter surrounding the market like pallets and crates and cinderblocks already exist, so modeling them won't be necessary.
I'll probably find a better wood texture for the Market as well, as the layering effect is way too harsh in these, and thus the words painted into it would be damn-near impossible to exist as they are.
So I have a bunch more free time now, but I might just relax a bit before diving back in. No joke, I haven't done like, ANY actual gaming in weeks.
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Oh, man. Memories...
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Oh man now I'm getting excited X3 Great job dude!
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when will the npc's be released?
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when faggots stop asking
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Damn, this looks quite awesome. if only if they fell off a cliff they just explode like in the movie.
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Man I really hope this didnt die.
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Oh, wow, I remember when this was originally posted; first, I am concerned as to why it is still being worked on after four years, and secondly keep up the excellent work that Graboid looks delicious.
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he's had other obligations (some draginball z film, school, etc.)
Edited:
ive been with the threa dsince the beginning +
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Whhh thank god I didnt want this to die when it was just soo cool and impresive.
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Well, a mixed-bag of news folks, but mostly good.
Firstly, I'm putting the Tremors weapons and Perfection map on hold until further notice. Just making a not-quite-accurate facade of Chang's Market took the better part of a month, and if I ever get to it, it'll be after everything else is finished. The weapons will take priority to that as well.
Still have vague plans of making a Burt NPC model. It'll depend on how well I can make his likeness, and how well I can get his facial morphing to work. I've never made a realistic human character before, so it'll be a significant experiment.
But what I've been working on lately is the Source Particle Editor. After some diligent work and study, I've become fairly proficient in creating particle systems for Source, and have made particles for just about everything I can conceive of happening with the SNPC's. This includes orange blood-spray from shots and gibbing, a fiery-bloody explosion for an Assblaster, dust spouts for Graboids as they race along, dust blasting out when a Graboid surfaces, and a system of dust falling off the body of a freshly-surfaced graboid or grablet. And of course, a complex animation of a graboid exploding underground, complete with a small fountain of gore, rubble thrown into the sky, and even some ropey entrails flying up before splatting onto the ground.
Invaluable in the testing of these particles is Source Filmmaker, which allows me to switch effortlessly between the particle editor and the SFM program, in which I can load my particles into a level and gauge how it all works for scale. I could hardly be happier with how it's turning out, especially since it minimizes Silverlan's workload.
Speaking of Silverlan, while hitting him up for some particle tips, I've discovered that he has, in fact, been waiting for the final release of GMod 13 to work on the SNPC's, mainly due to their complexity, so that he isn't faced with game-breaking updates every other day while the work is being done.
So there you go, guys, it's all starting to come together :-)
At the very least, you folks will get your Tremors snpc's at long (and I DO mean fucking LOOOONG) last.
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Huzzah! Can't wait to start yelling at giant worms that they broke into the wrong rec room.
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This has already been made.. but i like this
http://www.garrysmod.org/downloads/?a=view&id=117095
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Your not to bright, are 'ya kid? :/
But at least I can be a little lazy and use the link sooooo . . . thanks?
Informative x 1
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Winner x 5
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