Content creation question

jbb · Post by **jbb** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 1:36 pm

I'm a typical c++ developer who would *love* to create an MMORPG in my spare time. But I fully realise that isn't going to happen.

But I'd like a project of my own to work on in my spare time so I though that instead of starting a doomed MMORPG project by top down design I'd start at the bottom and work up. Just as a hobby project for myself you understand.

My plan is this -
To first of all create a simple 3d fighting game where one player can fight a single "monster" using weapons and combat. Then I can incrementally improve this. Let you fight several monsters. Add loot. Let you wander through a dungeon. Then maybe make it client-server and finally add the ability for more than one player to team up.... You get the idea, just build an MMORPG by stealth from the ground up. If I achieve the simple fighting game I'll be more than happy

Anyway, my question is how to best get content for this kind of thing? I'd need at least one "monster" model and one "player" model to start with all properly animated, and a simple 3d area for them to fight in. Are there any decent cheap tools for creating these? Would blender be such a tool? I'm prepared to put the time in to to learn to use it but if there is something else that's not too expensive I'm prepared to pay for a tool... Or are there any publically available models and "maps" I could use to get started?

Is this a FAQ somewhere? I suspect it might be but reading the forums doesn't really tell me what tools I might want to use for this.

DrPain · Post by **DrPain** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 2:06 pm

First of all, modelling is definately an art, and takes a lot of practice to get good.
If you just want some models to work with while you program, I'd suggest grabbing some freebies off the various websites (Turbosquid for one).

If you really want to do your own modelling, I like 3DSMax, but it's expensive.
Blender works well so I hear, but the UI is tough to get used to, but then again it is free.

See here for more info:
http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/As ... t_modeling

jbb · Post by **jbb** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 2:15 pm

Thanks for the information

I fully realise that it's difficult and I'll never be any good at it but hopefully can make something incredibly ugly and simply but workable to write some code around, and if I get any where I can either spend more time attempting to get better, or more likely get some help. I'd like to try to learn myself though. Hmm I'm prepared to spend some money but 3dsmax seems a little too much for what is basically a part time bit of fun project for me.

Bringer of Darkness · Post by **Bringer of Darkness** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 2:30 pm

I would suggest you look around and find some folks that might be willing to help you with your project - ie. search for an artists, maybe some of them might have some free time to spare and give you at least some usable results...

jbb · Post by **jbb** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 2:42 pm

Oh that's a good idea and should I actually manage to get my little project of the ground I will do, but I suspect that saying I want someone to make me some art for a demo/game that may or may not go anywhere depending on how much free time I have isn't going to get me far. I imagine I can learn enough to at least animate something before looking for help.

Post by **Praetor** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 5:16 pm

Yes, modelling, despite some "art" people not accepting it, is definitely an art. And one thing about art: most people simply can't do it. No matter how much practice it still takes me days to model a humanoid figure and days to rig it for animation, and days and days for the final product to come out looking and animating like crap.

Find someone who is good to help you. Make them as excited about the project as you are and maybe you can get some good art out of them.

P · Post by P » Thu Sep 22, 2005 5:47 pm

Blender is a solution, but in my opinion, unless you want to work as a 3D artist in the future I would not go with 3DS Max, first because it's expensive, but also because there are others 3D packages as much powerfull as this one ( and maybe more ?

) which are a lot cheaper.

I'm myself using Lightwave and love it, but XSI is in the same range of price, if you want to invest in a professional tool, you should look at these ones. Or use blender, which is free and good for game content creation.

Well, there are a lot of possibilities, I think you can learn how to make nice looking static models for your game in few months with some practice (trees, houses, furniture, etc....) but for animated characters it's another story, it's a lot time consuming.

Chris Jones · Post by **Chris Jones** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 6:56 pm

Yes, modelling, despite some "art" people not accepting it, is definitely an art. And one thing about art: most people simply can't do it. No matter how much practice it still takes me days to model a humanoid figure and days to rig it for animation, and days and days for the final product to come out looking and animating like crap.

lol, yep! even making a box, doesnt turn out great cos i cant make the texture that well lol, ive attempted a human before, failed very quickly

i suck at modelling/art work, thats y i stick to a programmer, i have a mate of mine thats goin to do the graphics for our game, but he usually cant be bothered and just goes and plays counter strike

it will never be easy for programmers

DrPain · Post by **DrPain** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 9:22 pm

I wonder why it is that only programmers get the urge to make the next big game.
I never see posts from artists saying "I've made 300 models complete with animations, textures, and LODs. All I need now is a programmer."

Chris Jones · Post by **Chris Jones** » Thu Sep 22, 2005 10:42 pm

lol, yea its a shame there any artists like that

jbb · Post by **jbb** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 11:06 am

I suspect that there are *some* people out there who would help with the art on a project they were interested in. But that nobody is going to want to help based on a general post like mine. If I can actually have somethign to show no matter how bad my own art (I'll make a cube monster or something) then there is a much bigger chance of getting some random stranger to help in some way.

I suspect the reason you see no artists needing a programmer is that there is plenty you can do without writing code. Just making a nice model for pictures is worthwhile art in itsself, or you can do animated "films" without needing any programming. Whereas to make a game you *need* art as well as programming.

I had a look at blender last night. I think I can probably learn to use it well enough to make something usable for me. The tutorial I saw makes a gingerbread man figure and I had a play with that. With a lot more effort that could be animated for use in my "game". It's in no way good enough for anything like a real game of course but certainly would be good enough for me to add attack animations and so on to and use to develop some actualt software pending getting some better models later.[/quote]

Bringer of Darkness · Post by **Bringer of Darkness** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 1:04 pm

I suggest you simply make an advertisement, where you make the statement how your project is intended to look like, what do you want it to be and make it public. There are plenty of people out there, I believe you may find somebody interesting (even one average artist can do much more than you can I believe;-)); and you can focus on programming - there is plenty of things you have to do as the programmer, I don't believe you may have time to spend on creating art assets for your game...
Just make it public, several forums, blablabla...
Good luck...

Borundin · Post by **Borundin** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:23 pm

I had the exact same needs as you jbb and decided to go the easy way at least during prototyping and testing.

[shameless plug]
http://www.ogre3d.org/phpBB2/viewtopic. ... t=mdl2mesh
[/shameless plug]

jbb · Post by **jbb** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 2:36 pm

Ooh that looks pretty handy

I'll be trying out some of these things this weekend as well as finally deciding if I want to use ogre for my project or not. As it's just a fun thing for me I might decide I'd enjoy doing the low level graphics stuff myself too. Not sure yet though... Thanks for all the suggestions

Rixeh · Post by **Rixeh** » Fri Sep 23, 2005 6:55 pm

Hehe, well 3D animation software are some of the most advanced packages you can find on a computer. It takes a while to get even half-decent -- so maybe us "artistes" wanna know all that work won't be just thrown into a trashbin if all the coders on a project just decide to disappear.

Which, unfortunately, happens alot more often than not on an indie startup mmog project!

jbb · Post by **jbb** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 1:33 pm

Indeed and the project I was talking about was purely for fun and so quite likely to get forgotten when something more interesting comes along - which is one reason why I didn't want to ask anyone for help.

I had a play with blender at weekend. As people have said it's really hard. I think that with some practice I can make a model or two that at least have a superficial resemblance to something I want to make which will be good enough for what I need and if I actually get some code written can ask for help or look for freely available things later on