Art Request: People

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hellcatv
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Art Request: People

Post by hellcatv »

We need some new fixers and bar patrons to fit out new bars....

right now our selection of people to stick in bars is abysmal and embarrassing.... having the C++ developers resort to google images to try to find a handful of people to sit at tables is ridiculous... so we'd appreciate some artistic help here.

We need people to fit in the following template
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... iew=markup
and
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... iew=markup

they're sitting at a table--if you wish to show their legs that's possible if we put a table sprite over them to cover them up.

if you can contribute just one image in such a format great!

also it would be great to have more people sitting around in the following bars (would be perfect if each person had a place in each of the bars)
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... iew=markup
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... iew=markup
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... iew=markup
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... iew=markup
and lastly
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/v ... iew=markup


thanks! I really appreciate it...
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Targon
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Re: Art Request: People

Post by Targon »

hellcatv wrote: they're sitting at a table--if you wish to show their legs that's possible if we put a table sprite over them to cover them up.
Why not depth textures - THE way to compose 3D stuff in the image space?
P.S.
You ignored my questions regarding the university planet.
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Post by hellcatv »

we could do depth textures---but that would require actually having an image with depth information--or cutting it out by hand--and that's the same ammt of work as cutting it out of a picture by hand

you are correct it's a good solution

musta missed the uni stuff
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Post by Targon »

Any decent renderer can output its Z-buffer contents. It's a standard and must-have feature. There are some image formats supporting multi-channel features (RLA-Z, IIRC) but I don't think it's really nescessary: grayscale JPEG must work. Hence image can be constructed on the fly using 3D card capabilities of the Z testing. This solution uncovers another possibilites, e.g. mixing 3D and 2D in realtime. Imagine player ship properly rendered inside the dock constructions (so some of them really cover portions of the ship) or system background or nearby planet visible on the base screens/windows/dock opening.
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Post by hellcatv »

I agree it's easy to do on the code side--the hard part is obtaining the z-buffers for the already-rendered scenes we have....


anyhow ;-)
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Post by Targon »

hellcatv wrote:I agree it's easy to do on the code side--the hard part is obtaining the z-buffers for the already-rendered scenes we have....


anyhow ;-)
Just provide the default old-fashioned way (alpha key) and let the old stuff slowly fade away.
Lightwave (ethereal walker) and Cinema4D (strangelet & me) do support the render buffer export including (but not limited to: there're also things like atmoshperic lighting, specular highlights etc.) Z-buffer.
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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

Hey all.

Quick suggestion. How about rendering opaque (turn off volumetric or projective light effects--not the lights themselves) and additive elements (light effects back on, all opaque objects lightless black) separately? This way, you'd have a base image and an "lights" layer that can be painted over using additive raster ops.

Edit: great looking bars by the way.
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Post by pincushionman »

What would this allow us to do?
Conquer space!
-pincushionman

---------------------------------------

Kansas really is flatter than a pancake!
http://www.improbable.com/airchives/pap ... ansas.html
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Post by hellcatv »

it might let us reuse a light matte for the oceanic worlds and the industrial worlds--but I think that would end up using 3/2 as much space--just save the original .xcf or psd (photoshop format) files...so that we can recolor them easily
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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

Well, I meant something like this. I use it often in Photoshop, and maybe accumulation, depth textures and painting the lights layer last in GL_OR mode would let you do something similar in OpenGL, but I can't say from experience. Just throwing in my $0.02 (blindfolded, and apparently missed.)
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Post by hellcatv »

I see what you mean--this would make the bartenders and characters look more "realistic"

well keep the layers when you send us the scenes and when the engine supports additive base layers we'll consider splitting them...
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Post by dandandaman »

strangelet, are you able to render versions with this layering? It might be useful to render the tables (and maybe bar?) as a different layer too, so that we can 'sit' wholly drawn fixers behind them :-D

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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

Working on several fixers here, WIP #1 (scaled down, of course.) Still gotta color'em and shade'em, but it's enough to get the idea.

Left to right: ISO agent (inspired on a cute russian girl I knew), merchant, "cloak", confed officer/pilot, pirate, insystem police, bounty hunter (mechanist--they've been presented as mechanists so far.)

Image
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Post by hurleybird »

Cool!
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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

Done coloring.

Image

No shading. It's a bad idea, since the lights settings are so complex AND different from bar to bar. Mismatched illumination looks horrible, but somehow, simpler non-shaded imagery does the job in these cases. Possibly another demonstration of the KISS principle?

Now I'm only left to separate the parts that go over the tables from the ones that are obscured by them (I'd submit a 2-layer Photoshop file with transparent background, or any format you guys choose.) Any preferences regarding image dimensions?

Final question. How do I submit these files? FTP upload? e-mail?
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Post by dandandaman »

cool :-D

size....probably minimum double what we've got atm .... but the bigger the better, as we can always resize down easy ;-)

to submit.....send probably to hellcat, or me...or petey .. you pick ;-) I don't think it really matters, anyone who needs a copy will end up getting one ;-)

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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

@Dan.A: Done. Sent you a PM with a link to the zipped photoshop layered files and a response regarding the extra characters.
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Post by dandandaman »

Replacement fixers are now in cvs :-D

Well, their top halves are anyway ;-)

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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

New set of campaign fixers in the works

Image

From left to right: "Gangster" (merchant), "Long-hauler" (wired merchant), "Investigator".
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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

Done.

Image

@Dan.A: sent PM with download location
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Post by hurleybird »

Are you also going to do bartenders?
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Post by hellcatv »

hehehe cool
that middle guy lookes *messed* up
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Post by CubOfJudahsLion »

Glad you guys like it.
hurleybird wrote:Are you also going to do bartenders?
Right now I'm on something else (it's a surprise), but if you guys agree that you want the bartenders to be drawn as well, sure, don't see why not.
hellcatv wrote:that middle guy lookes *messed* up
Dan.A described him to me as a "long-hauler". I asked if he meant the big guys driving trucks, and he said it was rather the kind that had popped in one too many pills. I took it literally and Mr. Janek Trashed over there is the result :)

Hmmm. How would Deucalion look like? I think we should give him a face at least.
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Post by jackS »

CubOfJudahsLion wrote: Hmmm. How would Deucalion look like? I think we should give him a face at least.
well, I'm not up to typing reams of descriptive sentences right now (it's really amazing how much sneezing with bruised ribs can take one's mind off of more productive subjects) so I'll start off in a rather lazy fashion.

His name is Deucalion, he's built as one might say "like a greek god" so lets start by raiding Hellenistic art stylings for inspiration

http://www.prometheus-imports.com/greek ... e-bf-l.jpg

That's a fair enough starting point for a decent face.

for skin tone, some brief photoshopping yields
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~jackass/sk ... ockup2.jpg
which, if it were more matte and less, in its shiny nature, clearly metallic, is actually about the skin tone I'm looking for. Yes - it's not a normal skin tone - but if anyone ever bothered to read the intro monologue, they'd know he doesn't have a normal skin tone.

I'd go with much less hair, and styled quite differently. Cropped very close for helmet use, but not actually buzzed down to the skin-revealing closeness of a new recruit's military cut. Hair-color also somewhat odd, nearly black with subtle hints of blueness.

Of course, this isn't a hard and fast guide to anything at this point, just some quick and dirty visual similies. I'll try to be usefully verbose at some reasonably near future point.

There is also something, perhaps, to be said for player character minimalism and letting the player do as much visualizing as possible about their own character, but that's a discussion for when my head is screwed on straight and actually in a decision making mode.
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Post by pontiac »

dandandaman wrote:Replacement fixers are now in cvs :-D

Well, their top halves are anyway ;-)

Dan.a
Funny note on the side: Jenek is a women sometimes :lol:

Pontiac
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