Softimage|XSI Tutorial Video

[Feath]

Valve did that "look slightly past you" thing on purpose. It didn't look natural when they were looking RIGHT at you, according to Valve.

I'll try and find where I got that information from.

 

[PvtRyan]

Be sure to suggest to us at Soft and Valve wha you would like to see in the future in terms of tutorials and online content.

Have fun!

I'd like to know why the exporter has a 5000 triangle limit, while some HL2 characters (and especially vehicles) are well above that.

 

[Gorgon]

http://www.onlynewz.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=516

check it .

 

[Spiffae]

Valve did that "look slightly past you" thing on purpose. It didn't look natural when they were looking RIGHT at you, according to Valve.

I'll try and find where I got that information from.

I have trouble believing you.

What i think you mean is that valve needed the character to focus just past the focal plane of the screen. focusing on where the player might be.

there's no reason to set a model to look off to your right. You can see in the pics i uploaded, alyx is making eye contact, and kleiner is not. I would much rather have eye contact than not. I think that's pretty cut and dry. Alyx looks natural, kleiner looks retarded

 

[Spiffae]

http://www.onlynewz.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=516

check it .

what am i checking? an ad for XSI? yes, alyx is looking right at me in those pics.

 

[kaf11]

i cant even imagine what itll be like interacting with these characters. not only will the look amazing, but theyll be realistic in their actions and the way they interact with you in the scene. i think this will be one of the coolest things about HL2. and about the antlions, maybe they have a digging animation over a predecided location where the mapper has selected a tunnel to be. that way, when they dig they can actually "make" a tunnel right there as you watch them. should work out pretty cool.

 

[Mr.Reak]

Great, finally company understands that characters are one of the most important things in the games. Look how many people connect emotionally with Final Fantasy games. But I have a bad feeling that PC gamers care only about damn polygon count and can’t tell the difference between good use of physics and one just for “it looks cool” (ala Farcry). Yay, I made a generalization about all PC gamers, am I a bad person now?

P.S. Those rigging skeletons in video look amazing, plus it helped me to understand where I am missing muscles and why my character doesn’t look quite right when walking. Hehe, nice

 

[Gorgon]

what am i checking? an ad for XSI? yes, alyx is looking right at me in those pics.

its a tutorial how to build a full characters..........am I right?

 

[Spiffae]

its a tutorial how to build a full characters..........am I right?

It's a link back to the Softimage pages that this whole thread is about. The worst kind of old news

 

[Spiffae]

Valve did that "look slightly past you" thing on purpose. It didn't look natural when they were looking RIGHT at you, according to Valve.

I'll try and find where I got that information from.

just got a response from Rick at Valve... he says it's some bug, and it will be fixed. It's in the Valve Info thread if you want to see it.

 

[X-Vector]

That's interesting; I remember reading in the pre-E3 previews last year that the "looking past your shoulder" effect was intentional.

Perhaps it's the slight (and also intentional) off-set of the eyes that creates this impression.

 

[Spiffae]

That's interesting; I remember reading in the pre-E3 previews last year that the "looking past your shoulder" effect was intentional.

Perhaps it's the slight (and also intentional) off-set of the eyes that creates this impression.

i think they meant that the character had to look slightly behind you, not slightly over your shoulder. imagine, standing close to a character in-game and having them focus on gordon's "eyes" to you, siiting 1-4 feet from the screen, they would seem to be focusing in the air in front of you, and their eyes would look crossed. focusing the characters a little behind the player would make them look right at you, the actual player... at least that's what i think they meant.

I can't see any reason for them to look next to you... it's incredibly distracting. watch that third video. there's no connection with kleiner, whereas if you watch the alyx vid, she's giving you a look. you, the player, that is.

 

[Feath]

i think they meant that the character had to look slightly behind you, not slightly over your shoulder. imagine, standing close to a character in-game and having them focus on gordon's "eyes" to you, siiting 1-4 feet from the screen, they would seem to be focusing in the air in front of you, and their eyes would look crossed. focusing the characters a little behind the player would make them look right at you, the actual player... at least that's what i think they meant.

I can't see any reason for them to look next to you... it's incredibly distracting. watch that third video. there's no connection with kleiner, whereas if you watch the alyx vid, she's giving you a look. you, the player, that is.

Yeah, you're right.

Valve really know what they're doing, don't they?

 

[Arno]

Damn, that first video was pretty interesting to watch. Now I have to download the other three as well. :E

Thanks for the heads up!

 

[laz45]

My friend has the unlegit version of Dr. kleiner's model and he does look straight at you, it might have been a bug in the model of the video

 

[Feath]

My friend has the unlegit version of Dr. kleiner's model and he does look straight at you, it might have been a bug in the model of the video

It won't have been a bug in the model, just the model viewer.

 

[Spiffae]

Yeah, thanks for clearing that up laz... Rick mentioned in his e-mail that it was probably the camera in hl2mv that was a little off.

I'm more and more impressed with valve's work on the characters.