3D people

[BidMod]

Hi all,

Is anyone planning on making any more 3D people for TRS? I'm making another route now, for which I need plenty of people - everything from well dressed office workers through market traders, shoppers, walkers, engineers right through to beach-goers. In any case, there is a shortage of 3D people (though there are a lot of 2D ones). I'm looking for people from the 1990s and 2000s, but there is no reason not to have early 20th centuary clothing as well, for those modelling the steam/early diesel era.

One final footnote - I'm not interested in western people, and I've already got Shoves' models (chatting away outside the terraces between the station and cricket pitch - guess that sums my route up).

Regards,
BidMod.

[shoves]

3d people are a bit difficult and although you can make them low poly they're not too well detailed; we've found to make them convincing you need at least 600 and for really good detail 900 is the base. That having been said, if you send us a list of what you'd like we can set about making base models that can be altered, so if it takes 3 hours or so to make the base then we can just alter it to the poses needed and add bits (coats, hats, bags, dogs,prams,pushchairs, suitcases or whatever else).
Funnily enough we were saying last week that we need to make more people and started on a base model for a female which as yet has no legs or head, and so a quarter of the work is done already.
If you're up for re-skinning you can alter any of our people and release them as your own if you want; I'd make the Gmax files available but we lost them along with some of the vehicles in a disk accident.
Once the base models are done I suppose we could release the Gmax files for them for everybody else to use. Might turn in to an interesting pan-community project:)

Regards,

Ian at Shoves

[BLACKWATCH]

Along the same lines, I have noticed that there seems to be a distinct shortage of "train spotter" figures for the ends of our platforms. :)

No good with Gmax yet, so would appreciate if anyone could make some gricers for me. :D

[SirWilliam]

Is it possible to animate the people?

Think eg. of people getting off and on the trains. That would be awesome! (now they just dissapears or appears on the platforms)

Same with animals. How nice it would be to, for example, look at a deer running across the track in front of the train (hopefully without hitting the loco :-)) !

[zatovisualworks]

Might turn in to an interesting pan-community project



Very very interesting, I daresay, Ian. Thank you very much.

Trainz needs humanity on layouts.

Alberte :D

[BidMod]

Really, it's just a case of you make it - I'll find a home for it.

However, what I really need is engineers in hi-vis jackets (there are a couple available, but I want more 'cos I'm greedy ;)), and I want to populate a town centre. This means people with carrier bags, handbags, kids etc.

Also looking for more people like Mrs. Blount and Mrs. Cotton for the terraces alongside the tramway. In a similar line, passengers for stations - including trainspotters - who will still be there after the trains have passed through.

For an idea of the areas I'm looking at:
http://lh3.google.co.uk/image/bidmod/Rht09p1diSI/AAAAAAAAAaw/vVMsuozvai8/s288/Screen_332.jpg (http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/bidmod/Trainz/photo?authkey=tn5veDCoIGA#5051760009577072930) http://lh4.google.co.uk/image/bidmod/Rht0651diRI/AAAAAAAAAao/lcfrMfc0b68/s288/Screen_330.jpg (http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/bidmod/Trainz/photo?authkey=tn5veDCoIGA#5051759962332432658)

Around there somewhere is road traffic appropriate to the 1990s - present, but the trams are of an older type.

As for reskinning - I'll take a look, but at the moment I've got a lot on my plate - the Westhaven tram fleet and also coursework (which I should be doing now as it happens, instead of posting here :eek:) take up a lot of time. Also, you mention that they have a lot of polies - what I am looking for is more a representation rather than a model. Something to fill the empty streets you can see on the screens.

[lewisner]

It would be useful to have some diesel "bashers" - carrying Adidas bags , and one or two bellowing out of the vestibule window next to the engine..:rolleyes:

[Gangsta_Boi]

Is it possible to animate the people?

Think eg. of people getting off and on the trains. That would be awesome! (now they just dissapears or appears on the platforms)

Same with animals. How nice it would be to, for example, look at a deer running across the track in front of the train (hopefully without hitting the loco :-)) !

Search for the username Kenichiro on the DLS, he has some animated Buisnessmen

HTH

Gangsta_Boi

[lewisner]

Theres an animated Woodcutter with an axe and soundfile and I remember theres an animated Horse and Trap for use on Invisible Track.

[shoves]

If it's background people then we can certainly make low-detail ones that won't upset the frame rates too much. We'll have a tinker over the next couple of days and see what we can crank out by the weekend. Animation's a bit more difficult but possible using linked pivot sections and dummies (bones are better but complex) so we'll have a go at that too.

[teddytoot]

For background use there are the Trainzpeople range based on two intersecting planes which with careful positioning can look convincing. These are very easy to produce provided you have a suitable coloured image. You only need an art program since you use the same mesh. Perhaps one of the originators could elaborate more for newcomers.

The Auran source CDs contain the meshes for the built-in passengers. Unfortunately they are in Max format so are inaccessible to the likes of me with only GMax. It would be nice to edit them to produce early 20c figures and also make some of the sitting passengers less sprawling. This would make it a lot easier to add passenger meshes to NG stock.

[shoves]

If some kind creator would convert them from Max format to 3ds we could all use them regardless of whether we're using max, gmax or 3ds........

[BidMod]

For background use there are the Trainzpeople range based on two intersecting planes which with careful positioning can look convincing. These are very easy to produce provided you have a suitable coloured image. You only need an art program since you use the same mesh. Perhaps one of the originators could elaborate more for newcomers.

I had tried these before, and as you say can be convincing in certain situations. However, if you look back at my screens above (or below if you've got the thread running oldest first) you'll see that the people would be so close to the tramcars that the 2D nature is too obvious.

I've also got Kenichiro's people, and they are quite good. Unfortunately, they stand out if used in an area with stationary people. It's like using card and plastics together when railway modelling - both good but never together. On reflection though, I could put some along the streets by the terraces (pic 2).

[Smileyman]

What sort of poly count are we looking at here?
I'm sure I can come up with a low poly blank model for people to use in GMAX, but it depends how low you want to go.

Smiley.

[BidMod]

Do you think it would be possible to go as low as 400-500, or is that pushing the limits?

Perhaps it would be possible to do two sets of meshes - one for charactors in the background at 4/500, and one for foreground people at 7/800.

Preferably easy to skin, then it would be possible to churn out tens of them quite quickly.

PS thanks all for taking an interest :).

[johnwhelan]

Do you think it would be possible to go as low as 400-500, or is that pushing the limits?

Perhaps it would be possible to do two sets of meshes - one for charactors in the background at 4/500, and one for foreground people at 7/800.

Preferably easy to skin, then it would be possible to churn out tens of them quite quickly.

PS thanks all for taking an interest :).

Ideally then using lod, but we if could also use chameleon we could put multiple textures on one mesh so the machine hit would be much lower. Mix in a few meshes and say 6-10 different skins on each you could get quite a crowd and still see locos move.

Cheerio John

[shoves]

between 5 and 700 is a reasonable one because they're basically six cylinders, if you go much lower you don't get contour and they're very blobby and square. We made an athlete for muscle study in just under 20,000 polys and some of the medical ones have in excess of 60,000 which would just topple trainz right over on all but the highest spec machines.
Four have been uploaded to the DLS this evening and they're just shy of 600. You can see pics on our space:

http://shovespace.spaces.live.com/


and they are incredibly easy to reskin; Bunty is just a reposed model of Abagail with a new TGA file. Anybody wanting a bash at reskinning them feel free and that goes for the next few we put on too.
If you can't quite see the difference, Abigail is carrying a shoulder bag, Bunty isn't but she's smoking a crafty cigarette which occasionally, if you look carefully, emits a wisp of smoke. By all means mess about with the smoke generator if you like.

Regards,

Ian at Shoves.

[seeseeme]

Sorry I have missed this thread but this may be of help and expand on by others.

A creator MGalling created what he called a "People Monitor" and then using the Auran mashes (something like this anyway) he created 3D people with different clothing and either standing, sitting, male, female. All you have to do on a layout is place the People Monitor somewhere and hide it under a building whatever, then you can place the people where ever you want them.

Use this kuid to locate one of them and the view pack will give you everything, including the People Monitor.

Kuid 70791:35872

A little warning here, there are 300 people to download :D

Hope this helps and as I said maybe there could be some addition/expansion of this idea.

Craig
:):):)

[ianwoodmore]

There is a problem with the Mgalling 3D people and People Monitor.
While they appear to work in Surveyor and Driver you actually have to place them in the scene before you know what you have got. ie they are invisible until placed.

If you attempt to look at them in Fileviewer you get an initial flash of a model but then it disappears. Probably the script file needs modifying but that is beyond me as yet.

CMP also throws a wobbly and declares all 301 of them faulty for wrong product kuid. I have not been able to solve these issues.

[jjslll54]

The 3D people I made using Auran's models come in between 600 and 700 polys. I do have all of them in 3DS format along with the textures. They are way too small in gmax and have to be resized. I got these off of the content creation cds. I don't know if there is a free source for these files or not.

Jack

[teddytoot]

As far as I understand it, MGalling's people monitor aliases to the original Auran figures. A problem with them is that in 2006 the green reference number appears in Driver. As I wrote above I would love to see some variations available. I did try modifying the Auran config file for the passengers to exclude the more sprawling seated characters. This worked but meant that the repetition rate of those left did somewhat spoil the effect.

For older figures (historically that is) a mix and match of Auran and the late Elvenor's meshes would probably be what we want. I MUST try to improve my abilities at skinning from scratch. :o

[jaceck]

I'll tell you my method for easy making realistic looking people for Trainz.
I've learnt how to convert meshes from the first Sims game into gmax an then im files.
There is a program called SimPose. It allows you to pose a character form the sims any way you like. It poses even neck, spine, but sadly not palm or fingers.
It also exports the posed "Sim" to obj file.
Another tool I use is called Anim8or. Its a free 3d modelling program that can import obj files and export them as 3ds files, which an of course be imported into gmax.
The only thing is, that they need to be resised in gmax after import, as they turn out to be very small.
The best part for me is that, after all those convertions they still have the right teksture maping.
Sims skins have resolution (in pixels) 256x256 for body and 64x64 for head.
Threre are lot of meshes and skins avilable in the Net.
You just need a few to create your own versions.
Mesh has usually a little over 700 poly.

[Smileyman]

The only problem with using a program like simpose is that you are using what are effectively EA's meshes.
I'm not sure how actively EA would follow up someone using their meshes this way, but I suspect they wouldn't be happy if they found them being used in another commercial program, and I'm not sure Auran would thank anyone for uploading them either.

I could be wrong. :)

I wouldn't recommend using scripted texture replacement either.
This could result in a big lag in FPS if a significant amount of the people were placed in one area.
I think it would be better to have a dozen or so models already loaded into memory and placed many times in an area, which we know trainz does best, and there would be no additional load on the CPU.

Incidentally, :D , I've just spent an hour working on a person model.
The total polycount is 322, and it doesn't look like I'll have to add to that.
I spent a bit of time on the head, which is where I personally would like to see some realism, and the head takes up 100 of the 322 polys, but it's well worth it.

Here's a pic of the head with edged faces to show how easy it should be to skin:

http://members.aol.com/bkr6767/Stuff/person.jpg

Not bad for 100 polys eh?

I've still got some major tweaking to do to the rest of his body, and then I'm going to see how he looks in the game.

hopefully I'll have more pics to show sometime this weekend, and with a bit of luck the polycount will stay at 322.

Cheers,
Smiley.

[nwhitney]

Looks good Smiley. I've never tried skinning, but I sure would like to have more loggers and miners.
Norm

[jjslll54]

Nice model Smiley. If you don't mind, I would like to have a copy of your model for study when you get done. I'm interested in seing how well you get the facial features to line up properly.

Jack

[jaceck]

Looks great.
You can completely forget what I've told you since you saved about 400 polys.:)
But i still think those who can't create such complicated meshes can try it.
I believe it would be very hard for EA to find out or prove that those are their meshes, its just another person model like yours for example.
Another thing is, because I have no access to the game built in meshes or skins I use third party creations, so I would have to ask their creators to agree for publication, not EA.
Anyway right now its just an experiment, a succesful one, but nothing more at least yet.

[lewisner]

I found a website awhile back for the company who do computer simulations of Baghad for the Allied forces and you can actually download the demonstration version.The detail is incredible.They also do fully animated 3D people but the file sizes for these are so huge that you"d need a serious computer to handle them.And thats the problem-with a programme like Trainz its a tradeoff of Detail versus FPS versus PC Specs...:rolleyes:

[BidMod]

Thanks to all those taking an interest. :)

Just downloading Shoves' latest uploads, who can join the others in the terraces by my tramway.

BidMod.

[Smileyman]

Well, I promised something for the weekend! :D

And here he is chatting up Abigail, while his big-headed brother looks on.
Ignore him, I was just having a bit of fun.
You wouldn't want to be behind him in the cinema.

http://members.aol.com/bkr6767/Stuff/man.jpg

The model is still 322 polys, with an extra 18 for his briefcase.
I have a few ideas for characters to create from this model (and the female equivalent of the model), but if you have any more suggestions please mention them in this thread with a small pic as to the style if possible.

I'm quite busy outside of Trainz at the moment, and my spare Trainz time is spent getting the Motor Racing circuit assets finished, but these are quite a pleasant distraction so I'll work on them as I go.

So far I have the following for ideas:

12 assorted poses and suits (6 businessmen & 6 businesswomen)
3 backpackers
Railway workers and Miners (need ideas for specific poses and pics of clothing)
Assorted Motor Racing officials

Please feel free to suggest others characters and poses, and I'll add them to the list if I think they're possible, although as I say they can only be worked on when I have the time.


Cheers,
Smiley.

[lewisner]

Did the guy on the left play Jeff Tracey in Thunderbirds?..:p

[shoves]

Are his intentions towards Abigail strictly honourable?:)

[Smileyman]

Are his intentions towards Abigail strictly honourable?:)
Of course.
You can trust a suit like that. :D

[BidMod]

Just a quick thanks for the cricketers - I will place them on my pitch as soon as we have a full team :)

At the moment it's a bit biased towards to the team currently at the wicket :D

Perhaps someone could create some of the assorted cricket extras (pavillian [sp?], onlookers, wives supplying sandwiches from a table at the side etc.)

BidMod.

[BidMod]

Just another thanks for more 3D people - your work is truly appreciated.

Been thinking, is the large suited character a relative of Jaws? (James Bond) The chin is about the right shape - just need some serious teeth and you could start a series of Bond Baddies. ;)

BidMod