I build models in Blender and am curious about what game genres are you interested in developing? I ask this, simply o I can get a feel for what kinds of models I should create for independent game developers.
You will notice the poll I submitted, so please select there and any additional comments about your preferences would be appreciated. Here is some topics to give you an idea of what I am talking about.
FPS
Horror
cartoon
Sci-fi
RTS
RPG
Fantasy
Environments
Vehicles
Characters
Urban
Jungle
Underwater
Space
Interiors
Exteriors
Buildings
Racing
Dark ages
Ancient History
Monsters
Aliens
Zombies
I understand that FPS is in high demand, would environments for this kind of game play be of use? Would you prefer interior or exterior?
If I were to go with Sci-fi vehicles or environments would interior mock ups be important? I was pondering like interiors of space stations or space ships.
Would real world mock ups of known buildings like parking structures, malls, warehouses, office buildings be interesting? They would be great for FPS in my opinion.
interresting things are always envirouments, there are never egnouth good levels. Things that are absolutly out are common guns aka AK47, we have egnouth of them. Vehicles are nice too, especialy fantasy ones. weapons we do have much but armors and equipment is missing.
Are you asking for suggestions what models you could produce?
I tried to organize threads with models published within BA at wiki.blender.org. If you have a look at the models section, you might notice there are not that much models available. And I do not know if anyone is using them.
Just by looking at the sections I would say… it is missing environment models (walls, steets, fences etc.) and item models (barrels, baskets, furniture, doors etc.).
The main problem with such thinks is, if you want to produce a game, the overall design shoulod match. That makes it difficult to mix models with different styles.
Anyway, I have some open model tasks already (everythin in cartoon style):
a full rigged baby dragon
a full rigged donkey
a full rigged fat knight
uniform cloth for my monster
fruit trees (e.g. apple tree)
forrest (-trees)
old road, garden road
bushes
books, bookshelfs, a big pot, tables, a hut, signs, doors, gates, water, bridges, walls, castle …
and that is just for one game
If you ask me, I think environment models are the most needed/hard to get (an after that comes the props, vehicles, and characters in that order), normally people fell more attached to their characters design so they tend to focus on them and later think on environments, leading to game play footage demos with grey surroundings. Also doing videogame environments are hard to do since you got to make a closed scene that doesn’t feel closed to the player (either with clever design or large places), using few resources so characters can get extra detail but at the same time making sure it doesn’t look boring and with blurry textures.
Thanks a lot for the information everyone, it is definetely changing my thought process.
I know that blender isnt really geared for mobile game developement but would ultra low poly models for mobile phones be of interest?
Cloud_GL:
You make good points about the challenges of creating environments. I have always found it distracting when you run into an invisible wall in the level. I wish the designers would atleast throw up some rocks, trees, bushes, cliff… something so its no so obvious.
I didnt consider the fact that the environment should be kept low poly (without looking crude and cheap), so as to save resources for the characters.
Well, I looked at the poll and decided on fantasy, which, as it happens, is the overwhelming majority of votes. I was wondering, aren’t there a LOT more categories than just this? I want to say, a lot of people go for a historical fiction, as in reenacting a war… Say, Call of Duty? Or, a lot of people go for a medieval game style, not unlike the medieval times. I consider fantasy as being more a world with giant mushrooms and a slightly anime, yet intriguing art style. I personally enjoy playing and/or making fantasy games and true to life games. So if I made a game set in the Stone Age, I would search history and draw from my knowledge to implement these aspects into my game.
Yes Those are only for one game, and I daresay those aren’t all the models you’ll need nearly If you start an open model thread for those I may be able to dedicate some small time to creating a few… Of course, you will get many models, from noobs to pros, and most of the models will get ripped off by noobs any way, so I suggest if you do make an open modeling thread for those, ask for a PM with the file xD
Anyways, good to see this thread, I have been thinking about this lately. Oh and ALSO, of course it has been done to make a mobile game before with Blender. Look up the game townrs defender, it was made fairly recently using the SI02 game engine, and iPhone SDK libraries. I believe there is a considerable amount of discussion on the topic on Blender Nation. I WOULD NOT recommend making ultra low poly models for mobile devices open to the public, as the BlenderArtists forums will soon be full of threads saying: How do I make a game in Blender into an app for an iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. lol. And it will be noobs asking these questions.
I didnt consider the fact that the environment should be kept low poly (without looking crude and cheap), so as to save resources for the characters.
Well that was an example since it also helps to physics evaluations like when something explodes and stuff bounce around, in general it’s a good idea to be always saving as many resources as posible, but it is also directly attached to the style of game, for example: a 3D fighting game only needs a flat ground, so the environment can get complex since the physics for it are switched off (besides the ground), but again those scenes would be useless for any other kind of game tough.
A racing game goes fast, so the scenes need to be pretty for a couple of seconds but need to be large, but a FPS’s pace is slow, so details become more evident, but the scene doesn’t have to be kilometers long, an RPG is even slower, but fortunately physics evaluation is a lot less important (although in modern RPGs this is changing like in Mass Effects).
I think making generic scenes with a few really good spots would be best, so the ones making the games could expand them (for example duplicating a few corridors or rooms) and populate them as they would need.
Cloud_GL: good point about the detail requirements on different types of games. I have definetly noticed the sharp rise in hardware requirements for FPS games. I have one futuristic FPS game I am rolling around in my head, looks awesome so far… But for now I will be going with fantasy environments considering the demand.
I do agree the environment models should include one or two custom areas with many objects individual from each other for easy creation for more environments of similar area.
Would you (general reader) prefer interior or exterior for fantasy. For even more detail, would you rather forest, dungeon, castle, village, etc.
micah702:
I have been thinking about the poll and realize that while this list may be specific breaking up multiple topics, it is very lacking in other ways. This is causing further questions about developers interests going un-answered. After a little while I may post another poll that focuses more on sci-fi and fantasy modeling needs seeing as those two genres are getting the most love.
Create a complete environment (with trees, rocks, walls etc.) as a tutorial template.
Whoever is going to make a videotutorial (as myself ;)) can take this template and show the points of the tutorial.
This would help to
concentrate on the tutorial, rather then to create a nice looking blend file.
reduce the number of tutoials with plain gray cubes
make the tutorials looking much more professional
enable the learner to start at the same file as the tutor.
increase the number of tutorials as would it be easier to make one
others can contribute as well
As a benefit, you could produce a modelling tutorial while creating the environment? e.g. how to create a rock ;).
[Edit]
How about making this a community project?
And than similar to the off-topic chat “ask the person below” there could be a “add a thing to the template” :evilgrin:
[/Edit]
Good idea on the creation of video tutorials while making the models. Could do time lapse with a voice over or pop-ups pointing out the important tools needed to do the project.
I think another good tutorial series would be one to delve into practices on making good looking low poly models for game development. While I am used to building models with sub surf in mind (so no triangles), I can bet that using sub surf on game models would not be a good idea. I would believe that watching resources with BGE would be even more crucial seeing as Blender uses logic bricks and python (easy to work with but resource hogs). I would love to see Blender be able to use the xna framework. I would bet that help out Blenders game development followers increase a lot.
