How to make completely new units/sprites with NO 3D modeling

[jason_ac]

So, modeling, animating, and rendering takes artistic skill, technical skill, and lots of time. Just to get a bunch of bitmapped sprites out of the deal.

You know what would take 0 artistic skill, minimal technical skill, and far less time?

Use techniques from stop-motion animation.

Buy (& mod?) a poseable doll/figure to be your new unit. Possibly reinforce the doll with a wire exoskeleton if it won't keep position.

Then pose it in the positions you need, and take a digital photo at all necessary angles, with a solid color backdrop. Use a paint program or chroma-keying program to get rid of the backdrop.

If the look of the sprite isn't quite right, you can do various processing to the photo to adjust the qualities of the bitmap. Apply blur/soft focus? Poster-ize (high contrast with high saturation)? etc.

[Melekor]

I'd be very curious to see a sprite created with this technique. I'm not sure I agree it would take less artistic and technical skill. Different skills perhaps. You eliminate the modeling part, but then the positioning, lighting and rendering part becomes a lot harder. I think it would probably even be harder overall.

Still, if you're thinking of trying it then I would encourage that. I think it could create a unique, cool looking sprite if it works out (and if the figure looks good to begin with, obviously).

[jason_ac]

Yes, different skills...though I still think lesser & fewer skills (& I have done some of both...3D modeling/rendering, & stop-motion animation filming). There's no rendering. There's little artistic skill...just knowing how to pose a doll (which you have to know to do it on a computer anyway). Acceptable lighting should be easy to achieve. Tech skills...being able to 3D model, texture, & render is harder than just taking a digital pic & chroma-keying it.

Looking good enough...well, if your standard is the low-res MII units...it's a pretty low bar to clear

Someone (or me) will have to try a proof-of-concept sometime...just get a single image sprite executed in this fashion, see how it compares side-by-side to a single MII image sprite. If I had any doll around the house I'd try it "soon"...but I don't. But maybe I'll buy one "soon".

[fildred13]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwIt5wagRsg

Buy all of those and make an entire plugin around that. Myth will thank you.

[vinylrake]

Yes, different skills...though I still think lesser & fewer skills (& I have done some of both...3D modeling/rendering, & stop-motion animation filming). There's no rendering. There's little artistic skill...just knowing how to pose a doll (which you have to know to do it on a computer anyway). Acceptable lighting should be easy to achieve. Tech skills...being able to 3D model, texture, & render is harder than just taking a digital pic & chroma-keying it.

Looking good enough...well, if your standard is the low-res MII units...it's a pretty low bar to clear

Someone (or me) will have to try a proof-of-concept sometime...just get a single image sprite executed in this fashion, see how it compares side-by-side to a single MII image sprite. If I had any doll around the house I'd try it "soon"...but I don't. But maybe I'll buy one "soon".

It's an interesting idea and I'd be curious to see how it comes out, but I think to get an idea of what's involved you'd have to animate at least one action - like the walk action. A lot of the work and time in unit creation (putting aside the 3D rendering itself) is creating all the frames, and importing/sequencing them - if you are only doing ONE single frame that only tells you that you could import a photo and use it as a sprite. I can guarantee you this is possible, I know someone who did this with still frames from photos of an actual human and it looked fine. See what level of time is involved in creating a moving stop-motion style Myth unit sprite if you want to compare.

True you don't have to do the unit design and rendering but you have separate realworld(physical) issues to deal with. The major issues you would have to keep in mind would be the lighting and camera positioning. Need a good sturdy, flexible tripod, a camera you can trigger remotely so you don't change the angle slightly everytime you depress the shutter/press-the-button) good consistent lighting so you don't get any glare.reflection.inconsistent-shadows from frame to frame. Then of course you need to have a basic understanding of motion and how to animate a figure so the movement looks good. (most 3D apps used for figure design/animation have at least a basic kind of built-in musclature-relationship between objects so you can't move limbs abnormally and/or libraries of basic movement sequences (like walking, ducking, punching, falling that you can apply to a figure you've created and tweak to get just right).

Also you have to FIND an action figure that looks like what you want in Myth - an action figure that not only matches your vision but is flexible enough to move the way you want it to move. That could be a pretty big limitation.

This isn't meant as criticism at all,I think using the Robot Chicken style animation methods to create Myth II units is a really interesting idea - and one I am tempted to try myself - I just think you might be seriously underestimating how easy or difficult it would be to make completely new units with this method.

[jason_ac]

It's work. But like I wrote, I've done both stop motion, and some 3D modeling/animating/rendering...I think the stop motion is easier. And do-able by those who can't master all the 3D tech stuff. As long you find, build, or buy an appropriate figure.

>I know someone who did this with still frames from photos of an actual human and it looked fine.

Now see, if you could find an atrium with a catwalk/walkway above it, and a solid-color floor, you could use an actual human, shooting downwards at them, and walk around the catwalk above them to get all the angles you need.

Surely there's a Myth-er who wants to lay down a tarp, drag around some scaffolding, and let costumed geeks frolic in their photographic playground! I'll pull out my swords and Ren faire costume.

As for stop motion...lighting, setting-up a tripod & tabletop, etc...those bits just aren't that hard.

For a camera you can use a webcam, a DSLR, etc. For remote triggering, you hook your camera to your computer, and use the camera's software, or FrameThief, or Dragon Stop Motion, or whatever. Probably simple camera control apps would be fine too, since you're not actually making a stop motion film. Or for some cameras you can buy a remote.

Heck, your phone would work, if you can mount it to a tripod. Get a cam app that fires using the proximity sensor. Even if it fired by a light touch on the screen, that probably wouldn't cause any problems.

It is true you have no "movement library" like you do in a 3D program. Though at least your doll has joints! You'll see immediately if you've bent it "wrong".

To figure-out your movement cycles, you could use a smartphone app like Gifboom to do a crude low FPS "video" of yourself performing the motions, then analyze the frames to see how you should animate your doll.

>Also you have to FIND an action figure that looks like what you want in Myth - an action figure that not only matches your vision but is flexible enough to move the way you want it to move. That could be a pretty big limitation.

Yes, could be pretty hard. Get a generic figure and cover it with a tiny hand-made cloth robe? Or, if you don't want to deal with the tech & time of 3D modeling, but don't mind throwing money or physical time at the problem, you could build or commission a stop-motion animation model that is exactly what you need.

You decide what parts of it you'd like to do, or farm out to other volunteers, or pay someone to do. Building the armature...sculpting the flesh in clay...casting the flesh in foam rubber...making clothing. I never liked building armatures. But I did like sculpting.

Bear in mind too, any minor problems with your doll (seams?) or your photographic technique...Photoshopping your raw footage could get time-consuming, but doesn't require great skill or artistic ability.

[jason_ac]

Hmmm, here's another possible solution for the figure...start trolling around in the animation world (forums?). Find someone who's already got models like what you need for their stop motion projects. Convince them that doing some easy animation (for them) for Myth would be worth the fame & fortune it will bring them.

Or, just find a cool, appropriate figure first, THEN decide that it's what you were looking for

Needing 8 angles of every frame is kind of a time-consuming pain though. Ah well. No easy solutions.