Making our own creatures with OpenZone: call for modelers

[Windcatcher]

Now that we can make our own zones and handheld items with OpenZone, I'd like to see if we can make our own creatures. I don't think it would be all that hard to add the capability to OpenZone, but I would need at least some sample source material to make it work. What I'd like to do here is put out a call to see if there are any interested creature modelers, and if so, if we can decide on a file format that OpenZone should import. I know that making creatures isn't an easy process, but if we had a textured model that could stand, walk, run, and attack that would give me a good starting point. The question is, is there any interest in making our own creatures?

One point is that since OpenZone uses OpenGL any textures need to be a power of 2 on a side, like 64x64, 64x128, etc.

[GeorgeS]

I think creating the models is pretty easy, but good animation and texturing is a bare. I can give you a few simple monsters that have animation seq. something like -

1-30 idle
31-60 walk
61-90 run
91-130 attack
131-160 die

My animation is done is TS6.6 and can be exported as .X, .MDL, .B3D ...

What may be useful is to export to a few formats that support animation.
(I animate by mesh deformation and/or with hierarchical bone set-up.)

- are you thinking of replacing .WLD files so we can get rid of this horrible format?

- One concern is not too many people have created new zones - I have made a few but that's it. I have not put spawns in there even. I am going to see if I can create .map file (I think OZ does this) and make a complete zone with NPC's.

GeorgeS

[Windcatcher]

What you're proposing sounds just fine. I'm leaning toward the .X format since it's text-based and should be easier to parse. The animations you listed should be fine, and the .WLD format works the same way, with a hierarchical skeleton.

I definitely intend to keep expanding the .XWF format so that it can support weapon and mob models. It was intended from day one to be a better format for our own client, and I want OpenZone to fully support the format. As it stands, if people want to work on a client, the .XWF format supports zones, and it's expandable such that we can add support for new information without breaking anything. There is already code in OpenZone to import .XWF files, so for a client all that would be required would be to port the code to the language of one's choice (and it's surprisingly little code).

[Windcatcher]

Just a little update...I've been working on my elf model in Anim8or and I have a set of animations for it that cover the basics (standing, walking, dying, casting, ducking, swimming, attacking, etc.). It doesn't have all of the possible variations (e.g. only one casting animation), but for a mob it should be enough. If anyone has a humanoid mob model that's rigged to a skeleton I might be able to use my animations with it and create something exportable.

[RangerDown]

Wow, great to hear that Windcatcher is still alive and active :)

Can't wait to see what kind of mob creatures people come up with. Hope somebody can make a dragon or demon that's so scary that for a week after I see it I sleep with the light on :D

[mattmeck]

WC, one big reason I stay around here is to see what your going to do next. I cant wait to see this, and all the other stuff you do.

[Windcatcher]

I'm still alive and around (sick as a dog, though). I'm sort of in a hurry to get something working because I'll be starting a new job soon and I'll be pretty busy. If someone can supply me with a decent humanoid mob model that's skinned and has a skeleton, I'm pretty confident that I can get something going. I already wrote an importer for Anim8or .an8 files so I know that I can get my animations into OpenZone with just a little bit of work. I think that most of the work in getting mobs working through OpenZone will more involve the GUI code to manage them than the small bit of glue code that it will need.