Enemy Checklist

[Vale]

So I'm not dead. Mostly. I've been working on Ruined here and there, and while it is progressing, it is doing so very slowly.
Anyway, why I'm here.
I'm making a custom monster (one of many) for my CS, and am wanting a full list of resources I will need.
IE how many animations will I need at the lowest level, sounds, etc.

I have completed it's model, texture, and skeleton (it's my very first character model! Woo!) and I just want something to help keep me organized. Thank you very much.

Also, for anyone interested:

Spoiler below!

Tell me what ya think! oh, and the screenshot doesn't give its skin full justice. Its a bit nastier than what the blender lighting shows. It will have glowing eyes when I import it into HPL2.

Oh, and ahead of time: If anyone wants to use this model (why would you? Its not that good) it will be available for use AFTER my CS is done, along with all other custom creatures.

Thanks!

[Juras]

Very nice monster you have there! Especially for being you first one I really like the head.
The body looks like a jumpsuit for me though (the visible UV seams make it look even more like that) which isn't necessarily a bad thing cause I think it fits him quite well but I'm assuming it's supposed to be his skin xD.

My advice for making your next monsters/creatures would be to have some references of basic body anatomy when modeling/sculpting and when it comes to texturing, I would recommend learning to use atleast Mudbox (you can get a free student version) and using the painting tools that are given there. It's really easy to learn thanks to the simple UI and it will give you alot more freedom when it comes to making the texture than photoshop (if that's what you're using now) and it will make your monsters texture look alot more natural and organic, mostly because you'll be making your texture using the actual 3D model and painting on top of it.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's talk more about the "checklist". Since you have your model and texture finished all you have left is rigging and animation which will probably give you the most headache and make you want to smash your computer. The "animating" process itself will be actually fun but it's the exporting and weights that will do their best to try to fuck with you. Fear not, I have encountered pretty much every problem possible and smashed some screens already (not really smashed but I've expierenced quite some rage when I was new to this so to say) so after all that I know now how to successfully make a fully functional monster for Amnesia as I have created 6 monsters and made them work.

Now you said that you already made a skeleton but I really hope you did not do that using blender. I don't know anyone that has managed to make a monster, rig it there and animate it using blender without the engine crashing (maybe there is someone but I my case it's a no). What you should use is Maya 2011 or lower (Maya 2011 worked best for me), only then can I guarantee you that you will be able to make your monster work in HPL2. I'm not sure though if there is still a student version available on Autodesk Educational website (There was when I got it but I'm not sure if that's the case now). Anyway maya is the way to go and if you never used it before you should learn some basics and then start by making a new skeleton in there and only then animate. I'm not going to teach you how to make a skeleton and how to use maya to animate since Acies has already made a fantastic thread about all that: http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/thread-11448.html
Most of the things that you need to know about exporting/animating should be there

Lastly I want to give some personal tips that I used myself when I animated my monsters.

1. Do some research on using IK handles and controllers for your skeleton in Maya. You have no idea how much they will make the animating process EASIER. Many here think that you can't use them and you're only stuck with joints as the HPL2 only accepts them but that is not entirely true. You EXPORT the animations ONLY with the joints, but before that you can use as many controllers and IKs you want as long as you BAKE the animations and remove the IKs and controllers before exporting. Using only the joints will make it a hell trying to make your animations look as good as the grunt's.

2. Import the grunts animations and use it as a reference when making you animations. You will need 13 animations (unless you don't want the extra 3 idles) for your monster, and the grunt has all of them. You just have to rename the grunt's animation files from ".dae_anim" to ".dae" if you want them to import in maya. Here's an example picture of how I used the grunt's "walk" animation as a reference when I was making my monster's walk animation.



The movement on my monster is not exactly the same but that's the point, you make a base movement looking at the grunt (torso rotaion, hip rotation/position, leg movement, feet position, etc..) and then you change it as you like. This method helped me alot and if want you can see how in the end, all the 13 animations turned out for one of my monsters here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG2gk1jZ...gJQIK9Ad4g

When it will come to sounds, it will be fairly simple. You'll be able to use grunts or brutes sounds, or you own. You'll be able to add sounds at any part of any animation you want inside the model editor. That's where you will also arrange all your animations, speed, stats, etc.. but you shouldn't worry about that now.

I hope I helped you and if you'll have any questions feel free to ask me and I'll do my best to find the time to answer them and help you further. Be patient, making your monster work will require alot of work, just don't give up and you should be able to do it. Good luck!

[Vale]

Alright, thanks! And believe it or not, I've exported animated/rigged models from Blender into Amnesia. It took me about 7 hours to get that to work. I'll be sure to look through all the resources you've given me here, greatly appreciated! As far as the skin looking like a jumpsuit, I'm playing around with a normal map which makes it feel much more organic. I have done all work with it in Blender so far. I'll post a screenshot with the skin with a normal map on, but you'll see that I have to fix the creases in the Nmap. It was generated with crazybump, which I guess doesn't account for UV's. Does Mudbox have the ability for the normal mapping? Thanks in advance!

Spoiler below!

[Juras]

Oh you did? Well then, I salute you sir! However even if you managed to get the model with the skeleton inside the model viewer without it crashing, I suggest you make a test animation before you start with the real animations as you might pick up some new problems.

About the texture. The model in the image you showed now looks alot better as the the skin looks alot more organic with the normal map and the specular. However those UV seams are quite nasty and are really in the way of making the texture look as good as possible. You could manually fix it by using the heal brush/spot heal brush on those bad parts in the normal map inside photoshop. If you're using gimp it should have a similiar tool. But...When it comes to making texture maps for monsters/characters/creatures you genrerally want to use another method for much better results.

So basically this is how it works (there are different methods out there and I am not a pro, but this is what I personally use and it gives me great results. It might be more extra work but in the end it's all worth it if you want your model to look more proffesional):

First you make a high poly detailed mesh with sculpting which is nothing new. Then you paint the sculpt using various texture-painting tools that Mudbox or Zbrush has (Zbrush has much better tools but is harder to learn and doesn't have a free version). After that you retopologize the high poly mesh so it has an acceptable poly count. Then comes the UV unwraping and after that, this how you make the best possible texture maps including diffuse map, AO map, cavity map and normal map:

You use a program called "Xnormal" which is completely free. It basically bakes various types of texture maps using high poly model data into your low poly model. It's very easy to use and there are plenty of tutorials showing you how to do it. You start by importing the high poly mesh that you sculpted with bunch of detail and textured(painted) using Mudbox/Zbrush, then you import your low poly mesh with all the UVs ready. After that you simply choose what kind of maps you want to bake from your high poly mesh and the program will simply bake it into your low poly mesh's UVs. You might need to "clean up" some of the maps that the program will bake which is very usual, but it's fairly simple to to do it by mostly using the heal brush and the extra work is all worth it.

The AO and Cavity maps can't be applied in the material editor but you can simply apply them inside photoshop on top of your diffuse (the "colors") and if you do that your diffuse will look a hell of a lot better. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:



(In the first image I only have the base colors from the painted high poly sculpt. On the second one I have AO and cavity maps applied as "Multiply" layers on top of the colors layer which as you can see, adds depth to the texture.)


This method is probably too late to use for this monster that you made as you already have all the textures and the normal map (your diffuse looks quite good actually), unless you want to take the extra time and improve the high poly mesh of yours inside Mudbox and make new texture maps. You won't have to re-do the low poly mesh though. It's up to you. But if you want to improve I advice that you at least try this method on your next monsters/creatures (if you're planning on making more) and see if it works for you.

As said, if you have further questions I'll be happy to help you