//Haven’t found a more suitable forum for the question, so I’m asking it here.
The question:
Is it possible to find a FREE blender model (“armed guard” type (police/military), textured, rigged, and with at least finished walk/run animation)? I’ve checked turbosquid, “official blender model repository” and didn’t find anything suitable. Does such content exist or do I have to make it myself/hire someone?
//I’m NOT asking someone to make a model for me, I just want to know
// whether it is possible to find something like this or not.
Why I’m asking:
I’m hacking (i.e. modifying) game engine, need model for testing new functionality. I am a bit familiar with modeling (and I can draw a bit), but it is not my specialization, so making something will take quite a lot of time.
Additional questions:
If finding free content of this quality is not possible (i.e. I’ll have to make it myself), where I can “cut corners” on model development? If I’ll have to make a model, I’ll be aiming at something of resident evil 2 or quake 3 character quality. What are good tutorials, texture resources (or texture making tutorials) that will save time?
Also, what is a normal price for developing a character with animation?
Hi there,
The Answer (to your question) is NO. A free model as you describe does not exist because when someone creates a model and optimizes the mesh for everything to deform properly, then paints the textures, creates the skeleton and tweaks the rig and lastly finishes with a walk cycle, she/he has created a very very valuable asset worth thousands of Dollars.
That also would take about a week of work and therefore giving it away would make no sense unless, something went wrong and fixing the mess is no longer an option. There are model available for free which, in my opinion, take longer to fix than to create from scratch.
About saving time …
That is actually a funny statement. If time is of concern, than hire someone who can deliver a product for you. The only shortcut I have discovered is to do facial animation with ZignTrack. Everything else is hard work.
If by “hacking game engine” you refer to the blender game engine, than I’d contact the guy who made the “Blender Basics” video series over at Cartoon Smart.
He covers in detail how to model a mouse, animate it and import the rig into the blender game engine.
Perhaps that would give you a quick start and a model to use until you find something that is more in line with what you require?
Keep us posted! You never know there could be someone responding who has something useful for you
Thanks for your reply, I appreciate it. One additional question:
I’m sorry, is the cost estimate (few thousands $s) correct? I was talking about relatively low-poly model - similar to Quake 3, Blade of Darkness, Final Fantasy 8 or Resident Evil 2 characters (only rigged and with skin - it looks like in RE2 characters were made from parts). I understand that development cost of main player model in Resident Evil 5, Devil May Cry 4, etc is somewhere around few thousands bucks, but hearing that low poly model is within same price range is a bit … unexpected.
Can’t do that at the moment. If I could, I’d already hired artist or two.
okay…
No, not a blender game engine. ZLIB-licensed first person shooter engine. Will have to replace 50…75% of the code and add features (better animation engine, different lighting engine, physics, etc).
The difference between a high poly game model and something like Squalls model in Final Fantasy VII isn’t very much. The big difference is the textures and the animation. Back then you couldn’t have too high res textures in games.
The difference between the models of Devil may cry and Final Fantasy VIII is thin. It’s the same kind of type of model, the devil may cry model is just more detailed. Look at this site for free blender models.
