Artists searched for muliplayer 3D game Nexuiz

[SavageX]

Hello,

I'm SavageX, lead maintainer of the free (as in speech, GPL) multiplayer online game Nexuiz (http://www.nexuiz.com). We started in 2002 and released version 1.0 in May 2005. Currently we're shipping version 2.0, released in June 2006. Every release we made had several hundred thousands of downloads and our community is large enough you'll usually always find between 20-80 players online (depending on time and timezone you're living in).

So... where's our problem? We clearly need some fresh models. The player- and item-models were modelled right after the project started and don't live up to today's standards.

The game engine we're using fully supports dot3 normalmapping as seen in e.g. Doom 3 and Quake 4 - but the models are predating this functionality by years and therefore don't take advantage of that. Their animations usually are mediocre as well. Human models are somehow out of proportions etc.

You can see some (very outdated, but the models are still the same) shots at http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz/index.php?module=media and some more recent shots at http://savagex.planetnexuiz.de/shots.zip . Of course you can download the whole game and have a look, too.

The project itself is alive and has some very active crew behind it - it's not going to disappear anytime soon

We don't have any active modellers, though, so we stuck on that side at the time being.
We'd greatly appreciate any help.

If you are interested to help you can reach me e.g. via email at maikmerten AT gmx.net or e.g. in #alientrap on irc.anynet.org (our development team is named Alientrap, see http://www.alientrap.org ). I'm of course monitoring this thread as well... so feel free to post any questions or feedback or whatever comes to your mind

Thanks,

SavageX

[Al_Capone]

I played this game, enjoy it very much, however I'm not to well at Sci-fi stuff.

[SavageX]

Well, thanks for enjoying Nexuiz then (and for bumping this thread)

Would be a perfect chance to improve on your sci-fi skills, though

[Al_Capone]

My pleasure I had been trying to do sci-fi textures for crystalcore, sure I got a little there, but I often get stuck trying to figure out what should be put there. However, I could do orogenic textures and I had created some models to be use for crystalcore but as for animating and uv mapping, I'm just not there yet.

[Wereaser]

Downloading now...

Just out of curiosity: What model format you're using for characters and items?

[Al_Capone]

Something else to note, you might want to try the crstalspace forum, there's a bunch of game projects going on over there.

[Morphed]

Now we are using zym model format, but for new models i think we are going use dpm, but dont be afraid i will help to skin, rig, animate and convert to right format.
We dont need only sci-fi models, some kind of alien beasts are welcome too
just join our irc channel if you are intrested

[SavageX]

At the time being we're using - as Morphed already stated - an engine-specific model format (.zym). That's a skeletal format with self-controlling animation (basically animation loops). That's about as flexible as a concrete wall so there are more sane formats (e.g. zym's successor dpm) we could switch to.

The engine supports:

- .zym (skeletal, animation loops). Generated from HL-format .smd files with a homebrew open-source tool.
- .dpm (skeletal, keyframe animation). Generated from HL(2)-format .smd files. Again using a homebrew tool.
- Q1 .mdl (pre-skeletal). The original blast from the past.
- Q2 .md2 (pre-skeletal). Another blast from the past - this time with horrible vertex precision
- Q3 .md3 (pre-skeletal). Nice tool support usually.
- Unreal .psk (skeletal, keyframe animations AFAIK).
- perhaps a few I forgot.

We can use whatever suits the artist's needs.

[Al_Capone]

SavageX, I got some models already made up for crystalcore, I'll talk to jorrit and see if we could make a deal. Perhaps you can animate it, give it bones, UV mapping and use it in your games in exchange of being credit for it and sharing the result with crystalcore as well have them use it as well. You may also add to it and change as long as you provide the animation and bones with the original model with crystalcore.

[ashraf]

I'd love to model some new characters as long as you provide me with some basic concept art

[Wereaser]

I'll think about making some items, but I won't promise anything. Seemed like a very good game. Except for the fact that my FPS jumps from 140 down to 9 at times and then back up to 140. Must be some effect that my Radeon 9800 pro can't handle too well.

[SavageX]

Wow, thanks to all wanting help.

@Al_Capone: Sounds cool. Personally, I can neither model nor animate :-/

If we can negotiate to get your models GPL'ed (with full credits, of course) they may be a very usable starting point for artists being more competent than I am

@ashra: I'll try to find some concept art. The original models were an one-person effort and I can only hope he did make some concepts first. However, what we surely have is the model source to (most of) the models:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...ease_id=422119

Here you can see how current model conversion from .smd to .zym works (converters are provided in the downloads), btw.

Player models in Nexuiz are a basically divided into 3 sets: Humans (currently they are badly out of proportions IMO and that's what'd mostly need fixing), Humanoid Robots and Humanoid Aliens.

So you could either go down the "remake" route, keeping the basic style or just brainstorm and create whatever comes to your mind with the help of inspiration from the old models.

@Wereaser: We could definately need some work on the items so we'd highly appreciate work on that, too.

About the performance problems: Perhaps http://www.alientrap.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=12 is of help for you?

@All

We have to put some thought in how to get the models from Blender into Nexuiz, too. Are there .smd exporters for Blender (our toolchain uses them to generate our formats)?
Or exporters for the Unreal skeletal format? Do we want to have the models in one piece (like now) or do we want to segment them (e.g. into head, torso, legs) to allow for independent animations? Do we want to use animation loops (like now, allowing for different animation lenghts) or do we want to switch to keyframe animation (this would allow us to properly sync e.g. firing animations with different firing speeds of the weapons)? To put it into a nutshell: We're free to change basically everything so suit your needs


We need to stay in contact. What ways do you prefer? IRC (we have a developer channel) or web forums (we have a developer board as well... or can we discuss things here, in this artistical environment to get more feedback? Nexuiz is completely open and free, so we have nothing to hide but I guess this may violate forum rules?)?

[Al_Capone]

Well, the models I made aren't humanoid, they are beast however, so if you just want to add them to the first person game you working or just want to spice things up with Nexuiz or just make them more human, whatever, I prefer if they stay as a beast.

[SavageX]

Well, with "humanoid" I basically mean "has something like a head (not necessarily only one), has something like arms (not necessarily just two) and something like legs (whatever count fits in)". So this perhaps applies to your beasts already...

[Al_Capone]

Cool

[SavageX]

Well, just had a talk with Morphed and it seems he's doing one standard set of animations for humans... so if anyone wants to use those it may be wise to stay pretty human-like

The alternative would be that every modeller animates his own models which of course would put additional workload on the modellers.

What's common practice?

Anyway, we for sure have to coordinate what types of animations are going to be used and how/if to segment the models and whatnot... so I'd advise talking about that first

[ashraf]

ok, so I think i'll create my own character, but based on the same style as the old ones.

[SavageX]

Originally Posted by ashraf ok, so I think i'll create my own character, but based on the same style as the old ones.

That'd be fine. I advise not working on it like a maniac right now, though, because some technical details may change (segment models? format? animations?). I think we'll get rid of all old models if possible so this a great chance to do things "right" this time.

E.g. our current models don't support looking up/down right now because there are no joints. This, uh, sucks and explains why our current models somehow look unreal in-game. The new models most likely will be segmented into head/torso/legs or whatever to allow for more flexible animation or to glue different heads onto torsos etc. This clearly has implications for any modelling work, though, so this has to be sorted out before any serious modelling work begins.

If you could slam together quick "prototype" models to indicate what style you'd be opting for this would be great, though.

Our working philosophy in Alientrap btw is something like "I'll do what I want to do whenever I want to do it and whenever my mood is good enough to want what I want to do" We're doing this in our spare time and without financial interests so relax and try to have fun when working on Nexuiz.

[Lamoot]

What kind of textures will the models need? I have no idea how to make normal maps but I could make highpoly versions of the models I'll make.

Anyway, here's a wip of megahealth I'm working on. It has around 1200 triangles atm but it's not yet optimized.

[SavageX]

Wow, that looks great. Looks very promising and true to Nexuiz style.

There are a few texture types we use in Nexuiz:

The two most basic ones:

- the diffuse texture. That's what we used to call "texture" back in the days there was no per-pixel lighting.
- the normalmap. Used to re-add details that were lost when generating the low-poly model from the high-poly one. Use tools like http://developer.nvidia.com/object/melody_home.html to do this.


The following ones may or may not be used according to the artists's needs:

- a glow-map: That's basically a diffuse texture that is rendered in additive mode. Used to have fullbright parts on the model (e.g. light panels etc.)
- a gloss-map: Used by the per-pixel lighting to specify how "glossy" the material is (how much light is "reflected" by the material). E.g. used by shiny metal surfaces or "wet" organic materials like slimy flesh or whatever nasty things you can imagine