NPC and Enemy models

[Verdite]

Hello

I know that this is a place to post work and downloads, but i thought i'd add a request!

I'd like to know if anyone has any NPC or Enemy models to use in game, and if theres any way of
obtaining new ones from discs etc, and the method to put them into SoM.

Thanks

Verdite 

[AsusX2]

Yes! I really would like to have the Original head eaters in my game!

[Holy_Diver]

You can redo the texture ("skin") ...but importing new models w/ animations is something that has not been achieved yet. That said if you can wait a few months, my next big software project/focus is an all-in-1 import utility which should let you import whatever you have in at least these (http://assimp.sourceforge.net/main_features_formats.html) formats (and asap Som models also) ...I want to make a few different intermediate formats possible also (pseudo-exporting) and don't expect that much trouble. Also in the cards is partial/multi importing (eg. like just replacing the swordsman's sword or something)

This kind of work takes time (as anyone who's followed my translation work should realize by now) ...it's very straightforward, but it's not magic.

This will be a tool completely separate from SomEx from scratch, probably called Somimp. It should make it possible to do whatever you need by professional means in terms of the mdo/mdl/txr files themselves. I'm going to give lowest priority to the map piece files... I have not decided whether Somimp should be used for anything map related or not at this point.


EDITED: Also, if you follow my doing once this gets started there will probably a number of early releases which people can use to import stuff in a limited fashion.


PS: I develop this stuff for my own selfish reasons, more or less like everything I do... if however I was approached to implement this stuff, something like this or the translation framework I did for Som would easily run over a few thousand dollars... not that I would do it mind you. That said, if anyone would ever like to donate anything at all to make my life easier, it wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit

PPS: And if any of you ever find yourself raking in a considerable income off the back of a Som game you'd better hook me up

[Verdite]

I'm really excited about this new project of yours, i cant wait to put in a  or some such enemy, to make things much more realistic. Also i noticed that the majority of enemies have a fixed movement method, and often (as with the mantis creature) i found them actually walking into walls (some kind of push up excercise?) anyway, if you could remedy this in your editor that would be a vast improvement.

So will you have an easy upload tool where people can just add textures and their models?

[Holy_Diver]

I will provide some way to directly modify the "header-like" info in the mdo/mdl/cp/txr files via Somimp. However I'm leaning away from Somimp having anything to do with the prf files. Unless it becomes clear they're somehow heavily interrelated.

Afaik the only attractor for the monster AI is the player them self. So if you set something to wonder about independently they're not smart enough to avoid banging into walls... and they will very likely try to walk thru walls to get at the player. There might be some AI collision radius parameter in one of the files somewhere that is separate for monster/npcs own body perimeter. The AI in KF2 seems to have something like this, but it seems to be a lot smarter than Som's (without deploying any unscripted strategies)

It's hard to say whether or not SomEx will eventually be able to peg down loaded enemies and level geometry in memory to the extent you could intelligently extend Som's AI somewhat. I won't rule it out. Once all the file formats are documented I'm going to make a simulator, and then see about adding optional features to that Som will never be able to do.

[Holy_Diver]

I was going to make another thread, but this seems somewhat appropriate here, considering this thread won't otherwise likely go much of anywhere.


I had thought I would be ripping the models and monsters from Shadow Tower first, because they're very close to Som and if add would add a great deal to Som. But it looks like I will be developing the Som import side of things first (because everyone appears to be in agreement Som models are virtually identical to Quake models, which seems to be more or less the case, and means importing should be very simple) ...however there is still the matter of how to go about really expanding Som's "war chest" so to speak.

I've also noticed KF3 (or KFII) equipment/items are a lot more detailed than I remember them (http://www.kings-field.com/kf2/equip.html) ...any of these would look really good in Som I think. Some of them I recognize from the builtin Som assets, and other models here and there I'm pretty sure I've seen in DD and nowhere else.

KF3 monsters (http://www.kings-field.com/kf2/creatures.html) are not near as good as ST's but some of these I recognize from Som and others probably would make the cut detail wise, and yet others could probably be easily tweaked so to make the grade.

Even if it's too early to rip animation data and all (something I definitely plan to get around to in time) if we could just get the models and textures ripped and catalogued that would make a big dent.

Again, don't forget the treasure trove in waiting that is ST (http://shadowtower.kings-field.com/)


PS: I'm operating from the assumption by birthing Som From' had to have realized it was inviting this sort of pilfering of it's legacy assets to inevitably happen. I just want to encourage everyone who can to chip into hastening that day... especially in the meantime while I'm producing an all encompassing importing tool.

[Verdite]

Thats some good info. I fully agree with you that SoM has little to work with (on a grand scale) and that players wanting to place old KF enemies and items into the game seems somewhat encouraged.

Its only natural that we'd want to expand on what we have to add greater realism and detail to our modifications and creations. But how are we (other players) meant to help with this? I'd like a pointer in the right direction, incase i can help or anyone else can help.

Looking at the KF2 enemy models, i was thinking that they look somewhat less detailed than SoM? So they shouldnt be too much trouble adding into the game. I was genuinely surprised with SoM's level of detail.

There are new enemies to add if we took them from KF2, but what about something new? Enemies that havent been in a KF game, why not bring them in? Would that be possible?

Verdite

[Holy_Diver]

Well having a lot of experience with Som's stock assets I'd say the KF2 (ie. KF3) stuff is more than adequate for the most part. Som like I said is more off the back of ST. Of course you can bring in all original stuff however going that route won't make even a small fraction of the dent you could get by effectively leveraging the entire art dept of From' Software for the years that produced KF2 and ST combined.

As for getting at that stuff, if you just aim for the models and texture maps (no animations etc) that is pretty well trodded territory when it comes to ripping data from PSOne game discs.

Todd appears to have already collected all of the model data probably for KF2 and KF3 however he maybe didn't have the texture data, however it should be easy to come by from what I understand at this point. Basically you just need to have the iso for the game you want (the same file you'd use to play it with an emulator) and to use some homebrew applications which have been developed over the years and are available online... perhaps combined with a little detective/research work (reading webpages and experimentation etc) ...the only particularly heavy lifting work might be sifting thru all the files and matching textures with the models they belong to and naming the files accordingly in logical sets.

Ripping TIM and TMD "files" is pretty straightforward business as things go.

[Creatura]

I'm making a skeleton as an enemy (wow this would be something new to this game  )

well I have this problem: it seems to have too much polys.
I also applied a patch (Catmull-Clark X2) and if I remove anything it will not look as good.
Is there any way that my model uses less RAM or something? I don't want the game to lag because of several enemies.

[Verdite]

As you recall i mentioned this to you, SoM has a resource limit of i think 20,000 kb per map (i hope another expert puts me right if im wrong) i got that info from the possibly SoM retired Madison Lastrega.

So essentially you'l want to either create an enemy using the method i showed you, using lines and the knife tool on a texture, or try your best to recreate the skeleton you can view in the SoMimp viewer. If you look at even modern games, such as oblivion, you'l notice how even these awesome looking enemies have been modified to use up less resources.
(I feel a bit geeky doing this  )


So you see this skeleton model. To me it looks like the ribcage started off from 2d and was made to look bulkier by edge scaling and so on. This part would have taken alot of polys - curves are known for this.
If you look at the left arm it is blocky. You'l notice how there are few curves here. The spine isnt actually individual blocks. It looks like its been created using a multire then exported as a texture, retaining its curves and depth. So essentially the spine would probably be a long cylinder with a few segments for bending the model. For my skeleton i used about four sections of one texture so that i could bend my skeleton using our "non mesh warping" x2mdl.

So, the skull - argueably the most detailed part of a skeleton model, looks like it has been made using the same or a similar method. I followed this tutorial a fair way a couple of months ago, and it gave me good isight as to how multires work. If you are patient ou'l learn a few things from this. Try your hand at it, ill help where i can.

http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/blender/sculpt-model-and-texture-a-low-poly-skull-in-blender/