We released the BraveTree Character Pack today. This model includes all of the source art for 3DS Max, Maya, and Milkshape including skins and a number of custom animations. The model is geared towards the Torque Game Engine but could be used in a number of other games with a little effort. The model was created by the pro artist Joe Maruschak.

My part in the production of this model was to handle the conversion from 3DS Max to Milkshape. We made heavy use of Ultimate Unwrap 3D for the initial conversion (export to .u3d, load into Ultimate Unwrap, save as .ms3d) as well as a number of custom tools I had to write for Milkshape to tweak bone/joint rotations. The tools in Milkshape for this would reset the bone rotations imported from Max w/o resetting the animation rotations leading to very bizarre artifacts.

We made use of the .fbx format to convert the Max file to Maya. Unfortunately, this conversion wasn't as simple as Alias would lead you to believe and a lot of the IK constraints had to be redone by hand.

There is a Blender version of this model in the works but it may be a few weeks before that can be released.

We plan to release the skeleton of this model at some point for free (w/o animation data) for use as a "standard" skeleton for the Torque artists community. With that in mind the skeleton has been carefully designed to support a number of different modelling apps as well as mocap data (in the works also). We have already used this skeleton internally for characters for BoomBall and for a sports character so it has proven its flexibity already!

There is a growing interest in buying quality character models (and other types) in the indie developers community. If you have some completed or nearly complete models that you think might fit the bill, feel free to contact me at matt@rustycode.com so we can discuss how you might be able to take advantage of this opportunity.

Edit: removed the offensive "proffesional" comments [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Umm...nvm...I'd really like to tear into this hear, seeing as you come off quite arrogant about your "professional work", and how much something like this would cost in the $4000-$5000 dollar range, and how people would be interested in studying "professional quality work of this caliber", but I'm not going to. I'm going to critique it as if it was a professional model that would cost $4000-$5000...

First off, the proportions are odd. I don't know if this is on purpose, or not as you have not submitted a concept. The shading is kind of flat on the face, and the shoulders and arms bend kind of weird for starters. The texture itself is of a cartoonish quality, which is ok if that was what you were aiming for. It could use some detail and dirt.

Looking at the gun it looks pretty unusable, as there is no real grip to it, it also looks in the same style as the character as if it just came off the factory line.

Anyway, now to critique what you've said. Game developers release models of higher quality than this that people can study and build on, and check the animations and skeletons of for the simple price of a video game. That and people make higher quality models than this for free, so setting your standards at $4000-$5000 is a little absurd. Anyway, if we want to take the advantage of studying quality professional work...we're already doing it...here...in this community...thankyou for stopping by, perhaps we can help you with some things as well...

Illusions,
I come off as arrogant? That was never my intention...

The artist who did make this model has worked on a number of shipped games at Dynamix and BraveTree Productions (which he owns a part of). He has been contracted on a number of occaisions to do art for other games and has estimated the "cost" of this model based on these prior experiences.

maybe not arrogant but uninformed about this community. especially the "unique chance to study the handiwork of a proffessional artist". quite a large percentage of the people on this site are professional game artists.

just a glance down the thread list shows work from The Lord of the Rings: The Third Age and 1, 2, 3, 4 threads with stuff from the new BloodRayne 2 game. there's people from nearly every game developer on these boards. Paul Jaquays has even done artwork for Dungeouns and Dragons rulesbooks and such.

just thought you ought to know [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Fair enough...it is true that I haven't spent much time in this community since 2002 or so. My understanding was that, while you often get to see renders and wires of the work of the proffessionals here, it is fairly rare to be able to get all of the source art for one of their models. I will edit my post to make it less "offensive".

Please forgive my ignorance. I am simply a programmer =)

Hi Mattf, and welcome on polycount!

Rig looks actually good from here... No need to pay/download to see that at first glance [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Waiting for the skeleton release!

As for the model itself... Yeah it sortof looks odd. I won't say that toprealistic characters are always the way to go, but this one really seems to be aimed at a certain kind of game (beyond good & evil, tombraider, aso), hence the model may be a bit hard to sell because of this (even if unrealistic bg&v seems far more interesting than, say, almost-realistic silenthill4).

On a side note, Joe M. seems to have used the classic DangerGirl modelsheet here, which is top quality for sure (been using it myself some time ago as a ref for my squirrel torso) but is certainly, well, a 'classic' now [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Anyways! This is however a quality model [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] I wouldn't mind playing it in UT2004!

Cheers, and once again, welcome here Mattf

pior
www.pioroberson.com

First off, good job on getting this released multi-format, and as a fully featured pack, I'm sure it'll be very useful and helpful to a lot of people.

However the character, in my opinion, is a very "boring" one. The texture is going a long way towards that (dull colours, not much interest in the design).
The other screenshot with the different texture is a better example, the design is more interesting but still the silhouette of the mesh is detracting from the "coolness factor", if you know what I mean.

The poses are good, but the mesh itself seems very basic, design-wise. I agree with Pior, it looks like your modeller has been using the Danger Girl references (or if not, the proportions of the character he's created are very similar to Danger Girl) - that's not necessarily a bad thing, but that character sheet has been used a lot to base model proportions off, and it's usually fairly obvious.
Maybe something more original would have helped there.

Also, the mesh could be optimised in a fair few areas - the fringe of the hair detail modelled on like that doesn't make much sense, since you only ever see that from the front view, at which point it might has well have been textured on and saved polygons.
Also the lower legs could have been optimised more, since there isn't much curve there but a lot of polys essentially defining an almost straight line, which isn't very efficient.
Also, in the posed wireframe/shaded image, the waist looks VERY thin (too much so, IMHO) because of the twist and the initial narrowness of the mesh there. Likewise the leg deformation around the thigh looks a bit weird, not very natural.
I'm not really a fan of how the face looks, either - not very appealing to my taste but hey, that's just my opinion.

Well, the rig looks good, and I'm sure it's a useful pack, but I just reckon the character and design could have been MUCH more original and interesting.

MoP

Alrighty, now that you've got that second set of images, yeah the model itself is really well laid out, as is the rig itself. The thing thats making it suffer is the relative boringness of the texture, and detail on the model itself. She just needs to be livened up a bit. Your edited post works better as well. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

And sorry if I came off like an ass...

The pack. Thanks this could be very helpful.

The model. Well, we know what gender the artist is.

The texture. Whoever designed it should go back to flipping burgers.

I also think the model is based on the danger girl proportions/modelsheet, mop is right, too many people used it as ref...though not a bad thing

indeed good job converting the model to multiple formats like this, I'm pretty sure a community like the torque community would be happy to have this model as template model, but as noticed earlier, the model can't be used in every game, and artistic direction should go in the same way, but as a template model, it will just be fine.
as for the model, it seems pretty well built even though it could be optimized, deformation could be better too...texture isn't as good as the model as said before...

Nice mesh, seems to deform very well.
Im not a fan of the texture though, the face doesn't look very good at all im my opinion but I guess that's a style thing.
Also if she had a shirt on the space between her boobs would stretch across instead of being skin tight. This is a mistake i see in alot of female models.

Hm. Could we get a closer look at the face, it would aid critiquing significantly.

mattf, you guys put a lot of work into this stuff and are releasing it for free, that's above any critique in my book. Good going

i want that skeleton...

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mattf, you guys put a lot of work into this stuff and are releasing it for free, that's above any critique in my book. Good going

[/ QUOTE ]

"BraveTree: Character Pack #1 $39.95 USD

Bravetree Character Pack Download
Download Size: 12.2MB"

Doesn't look like its free.

Oh. Well you all saw it: I was nice to someone for a change. Now I can go back to being a mean old bitch.
Pffft. Those BraveTree guys... They're probably French or something...