Comments - h0dg3

Tomorrow (Friday) is another of my live workdays. I'll mostly be working on art assets for an educational game I am prototyping for a children's book author.

Live stream is on lunch right now; but will be back up at 1pm. Come one, come all! (Fri, May 24th)

I agree about the third one. The second movie(which is what my post was refering to) could hardly be called his work either.

The way I see it, MC wrote a book called "the lost world" and it came out around the same time as a movie called "the lost world". There only relationship is that they both had dinos in them =)

...And the people might look better than in the second movie!

(that's a shot at the lower quality green screening of the second film that caused the characters to look out of place. It was once of the more prominent criticisms when it first premiered... btw)

I don't know, maybe the joke isn't that funny if it requires that much explanation. You be the judge.

I have so many grammar errors in that last post. Sorry, I had two minutes at the end of my break to write it. If anyone can't make sense of it,let me know and I'll be happy to explain in more detail, when I have time to pay attention to what I'm writing.

Hey there, character modeler for the mod here.
I can’t comment on the overall delay at the moment, as that is all being sorted out internally by the mod leader. I can give you an update on my progress and ask for you folks assistance.

The Muldoon character model is looking pretty good. All feedback from the current image posting was considered. The problem I run into is that my experience with modeling is entirely in Softimage, which does not have a character exporter for Crysis. I do my modeling and UV mapping in here, but I have to export as obj to Max, to rig it and export to Crysis.

So, the major delay for me was getting cozy with Max (not mention a number of technical issues. I love Win7 but the Crysis exporter for max and the sandbox editor would crash my system, I’m now developing on a netbook running XP). I’m now pretty comfortable with Max; however my character export does not deform well. I end up with major creases when he crouches.

We are using the provided rig from the sdk. My first thought was that my model may not have a lot of volume. You may notice that our characters have slightly large hands and/or chests. This is because the need to be modeled around the sdk character dimension, which are thick because it was the cryo suite. Anyhow, I tried to keep dimension realistic but the influence of the supplied rig may be causing the deformations be all wonky.

I don’t know the fate of this particular release right now, but I’m moving forward as I have time to do so. I’d love to get you guys a great Muldoon, but only once he’s great. I don’t want to release something that animates like junk.
Thanks for all you who are supporting this project.

For those following the development of this character, I thought I'd let you know the time frame to an update.

My "real" job currently has me creating an animated Christmas video for our company. It's due Dec 5th; so, I'll be resuming work on this character shortly after that. I hope to have him done with some decent content updates in about 2 & 1/2 weeks.

Thanks for following development!

Hey, nice to see another upper 20-something around here (age group)

I'm the guy working on Muldoon. I thought I'd give you a bit of an answer to your CE2 question.

The mod leader is currently researching the issue and so for all signs point to a move towards another engine. The technical reasons for this will probably be revealed when/if he announces the move.

For now art development continues on CE2, because it's not hard to take the assets from their state in our respective 3d packages into CE2. This allows us to continue fully developing and testing the assets, not to mention provide content updates that demonstrate their functionality in a real time environment.

Just FYI. The folks that constitute the Core dev team at present are in petty good communication via Skype. Most publicly accessible and/or forum communication seems to be done when there is something significant to present.

From my end (working on Muldoon), communication has been very good as of late, and progress is continually being made on the art assets; so, development is progressing on art. When the mod is finally released, we should have a pretty comprehensive replica environment of the film/book, at least for the items we plan to represent.

Anyhow, I'm not a leader on this thing so take that as you will. I'm just saying that from the perspective of my role on the team (character artist), it is very exciting atm.

@Devotus - I just read your above post about source issues.

Perhaps it could be broken down into smaller brushes. I'm sure there is a solution, just not one that is quick. I suppose the real question would be "what takes more time, porting the art to source, or developing the required code for co-op in anything else?"

Hey guys. Matthew Hodge here.

First; for those that have followed the mod and read through this post, I feel I owe an apology for my absence. I won't get into details as they are personal, I'll just say I had many major life issues take place over the span of 2 months. In retrospect I could have at least mentioned I needed to break for a while, but I didn't and for that I am sorry.

Second; the gameplay has increasingly sounded like Left 4 Dead...
Why not make this mod built on L4D?

The environments couldn't be as large or as open, but they can be very focused for experience. Heavy detail will need to be payed to level design, which could make it a more rewarding experience for the player.

Anyhow, it's just a suggestion.

Thanks for the clarrification.

lol, I was thinking that exact same thing.

Rest assured though, he will look as he should when the game releases. I've already taken care of the proportion issues. Updated images will come as soon as he's done and in game.

... seriously? ...
After all that talk in the previous posts of his eyes being to big?

Well, the best I can say is that I'm comparing him to pics of Bob Peck and working to make it more accurate.

It just had a thought on the dimensions of the face (excluding the eyes, those are to big). Both of these are shots are done at the highest point of the chest, angled up. It should be easy to tell in the 2nd image, but if you're looking at the first, you might not have noticed it. This can make things appeared scaled wrong, if one does not know the orientation of the shot.

Next posts will be done with a 3 shot. strait on front, profile, and then a dynamic 3/4ths shot.

Thank you.

No one's shown me any other Muldoon model. The only other images of Muldoon that are currently in the images section for this mod were done by me.

People come and go on this mod, but I started this guy about half a year ago and then life forced me into taking a long break.

If another model exists, I'd love to see some archived images of it.

The to do list:

1. Eyes less open. Rid him of the "I just soiled myself" look.
2. Nose should not be so long.
3. shorten the gap between his mouth and his nose.

All of these sound like the same problem... His head is stretched a bit long. I'm thinking the easiest solution is to scale his head down on the Y-axis.

This is my first attempt at realism with characters. I think the long head effect comes from doing "toon" proportions.

On that note and sort of off topic, I have a new portfolio site I'm creating. It will be up around January. For now, if you'd like you can visit my current portfolio site at www.matthewhodge.com . Please don't post feedback on my site here, as I want this to remain about Muldoon; however, you can see the sort of things I've done, that lead to the way this character is. If there is something off this topic you'd like to say or comment on, feel free to PM or email me.

One word...THANKS.

Great points so far. I would ask that when looking at it, compare it to the character Muldoon (actor Bob Peck). You can Google image search him.

Certain things like the nose looking too sad, that's a characteristic feature of the actor. It may be to long, I'll look into it; however, when a compare the model to a profile picture, everything matches up.

Thanks for all of the suggestions, My list is getting some practical "to do" items.

My wife said the same thing about the eyes. I probably need to shrink the eyeball and close the lid some more.

Will do, next update will be the complete model, and then I'll go back and touch up as time allows; however, I'll make sure they eyes and wrinkles are correct before it gets released.

In what way.
I've heard they could be open to wide.

wow that was fast!

I agree, he looks like a young Muldoon in this shot. I'll be putting in some "age and experience" aspects of the texture when I put together the normal map.

I'm currently logged in from work. I'll try to stay in when possible.