PinkDot on 17/11/2012 at 21:28

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Hi everyone,
I am like many others here - dragged back to Thief and Dromed after a long break thanks to the 1.19 patch. And a couple of other reasons for sure... :)
I've been around for last month or so, quiet so far, but working on some stuff at the same time. And today I would like to announce the project I decided to undertake. I call it 'The New Face of the Thief' as it's all about new look of the characters in this game. I'm planning on remodelling characters to make them look like human creatures, with faces, fingers and generally more personality. Not only that, I would like to create some tools (scripts for 3dsmax) to overcome some dark engine limitations to minimize awful mesh distortions (better skinning). I would also like to investigate the possibility of creating more complex skeletons and fix some animation issues.

Below is the video preview of a test character I have created so far. This isn't a finalised character - especially I was rushing with texturing and as a face texture I used some free sample from the website. But it gives you an idea of what level of details I am looking for. This model has 2293 polygons (4510 faces) and uses two 1024 x 1024 textures (body and head). An extra texture (512x512) might be required for characters with a long hair.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-J23lcJwxg)

In this video you can also see a number of problems which I would like to get rid of, if possible:
- wide and sharp arms. A common known problem. It hurts eyes on female characters especially.
- poor skinning causing mesh distortion - see his neck when he turns his head. Flat limit planes doesn't give any precision when it comes to skinning a dense mesh character, so I would like to use Skin modifier in 3dsmax, where you can paint the weights and then export those weights directly into .bin file. So this would be a replacement for meshbld.exe.
- floating legs
- poor looping of walking cycle
- twitching arms (when he stretches arms, for instance)
- weird twist of his thighs in certain animations
- and possibly some others...
The above issues were always present in Thief games, but were not that noticeable on lower resolution screens. Plus what was acceptable years ago doesn't look so beautiful nowadays....

As you can guess of course, this project is quite a big task for one person, so I would like it to become a community project at some stage. The way I see it is that I would like to create a solid and consistent base for the models, textures and (hopefully) new skeletons. And also I would create tools for making it possible or just easier to achieve. And then a few people willing to help out could continue the job, so eventually we could deliver all the new AI meshes in a reasonable time space. I would also like to get some input from you guys at the concept stage - more on that in another thread.

Let me know what you think.

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And the plan I made while ago - partially overlaps with the above, but it just has a better structure:

The New Face of Thief:
Goals:
1)Replace original lowpoly and outdated AI meshes with better looking ones (hi-poly, hires textures)
2)Create toolset for the community for easier creating new AI meshes of a higher standard for future FMs.


Plan for the project:
Research and Development stage:
1) Gather all the knowledge of AI meshes modelling and animation creation process. Especially:
- all files that are used, need to be modified or created (ie. .BIN, .CAL, .MAP, .MJO, .MC, .MI ...). Their function and internal structure.
- all the existing tools (n3ds2e, mshbld, Motion Editor, Motion Database Editor, ...)
2) Investigate possibility of creating new rigs or adding bones to existing ones. (ie. pony tails, more torso bones, some finger bones etc.). Find out if any changes in source code are necessary to remove any hardcoded limitations in that matter.
3) Create new Mesh Export and Import tools for 3dsmax (Max Script). This includes alternative solution to Mshbld.exe, which would allow for better skinning meshes to bones, by using the Skin modifier in Max. This would make limit planes present in the AI Mesh files obsolete and entire process more stable.
4) Create new Animation Export and Import tools for 3dsmax. (Max Script)
5) Gather reference materials for the new AI look. This needs community input - knowledge of all Thief characters, their intended look, concept arts, etc.

Production stage:
6) Create key AI meshes and textures
7) Release key AI meshes and all tools for community to continue work on rest of AI, maintainig the consistency and new, higher standard.
8) Amend/Modify existing animations (also with community help):
- to make them working with new rigs (if these are changed)
- fix animation issues like floating legs, twitching limbs etc.
- create variations of animations for women, fat people etc... (to accomodate for different body proportions)
9) Relase the complete package – depending on the pace of work – either all at once or in themed batches (player arms, mechanists, hammerites, guards etc...)

(sorry for the long post, but I hope it was worth reading :) )

AntiMatter_16 on 17/11/2012 at 22:26

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Wow, it looks REALLY good! Though, the guy has kind of a creepy smile...

zacharias on 18/11/2012 at 00:29

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Looks very cool! Great work already..

hmm..Shadowspawn is the guy to talk to about all this..but not sure if he is still active at TTLG.

On a semi-related note (not really ;)) I have an old Satyr mesh i did years ago in 3ds Max (it's not built in quads..bad bad i know..i was using Paul Steed's old book) that i could donate to this or other projects (could be skinned as a Trickster minion or whatever)..it's about 900 polys from memory.
Can't really help much more than that as this is way outside my technical knowledge, but would just like to give a thumbs up :thumb:

Yandros on 18/11/2012 at 04:17

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That is simply stunning, PinkDot. I hope you're able to make progress on this project and get some assistance.

bikerdude on 18/11/2012 at 11:49

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Very impressive PD.