i posted not too long ago on the subject of game character design using Poser......and someone wanted to see an example.....so here's a quick render of a WIP named Solemn.........actually, i thought once that it'd be a good idea for Curious Labs to delve into the gaming realm, and develop a plug-in that would export our Poser characters for use in the game(s).......of course, we're talking about a high-dollar plug-in.......but tons of different characters to put into the game(s) could be posted to the FreeStuff pages afterward.......back to the previous subject, Solemn still needs a good bump map, and i'm working on a morph that'll result in pointed ears that stay close to the head, as opposed to some of the elf ear morphs, and i'm thinking that maybe he needs exaggerated scapula and spiked bone protruding from the kneecaps.......maybe.......and definitely more adornment in the form of some odd pendant and some rings.......his origin is also in the works, so hopefully he'll develop well and soon.......then i can begin work on his female counterpart, Shard......

::shudder:: those rings look downright painful... What, is he a Senubite (sp? The Hellraiser guys) or something?

cenobite. (me? no, i'm not one of em! i, er, just know how to spell it...) what kind of games are you talking about? the quake/unreal/etc/etc games use low-poly-count figures. actually, it'd probably be easer to 'poserize' the low-poly figures, create animations with them in poser, and then export things like that... of course, pre-rendered games can use hi-res figures.

i think that Solemn would be more of a shamanic figure in a sort of Action/RPG thingy.....the Quake thing has been done to death......and as far as lo-res/polycount figures go, i figure that if a character were at least loosely based on Solemn, that'd be pretty cool.....then again, as i understand, X-Box console games are supposed to be quite powerful, and might handle something at least close to what you see.....perhaps not as complex, but close.......at any rate, the things i'm designing are merely ideas that could be used as the basic idea of what a character in a game should look like......

btw.....i'm gonna try to find a way to put a piercing right below the Adam's apple.....more than likely an 8 guage ring......i just have to create a morph that'll make it look as if the ring actually goes thru the skin at that point......8 guage rings are pretty thick, y'see......hehe....THAT'LL look painful.....and to answer, no, he isn't a cenobite......exactly what he is, i don't know just yet.....i'll have to spend a little more time with him and see what he tells me as i work........

{exactly what he is, i don't know just yet...} Heh. I know THAT feeling... And it SOUNDS painful... The X-Box is supposed to, essentially, be a PC stripped for only gaming and basic internet use, and nothing else. It will probably have the height of techology as of a few months ago when it comes out, and may - unlike most (all?) existing consoles - be upgradeable. But it WILL be from Microsoft, so it won't be all good... ;-)

It would also be cool to seem someone like that guy coming towards you in a virtual-reality environment, where you could actually "reach out" to him. Hopefully, some day VR will be more affordable and with the way the equipment is designed, there are probably places you could have a character highly detailed like yours actually keep his high-resness. One place like that is the CAVE, in a university somewhere, can't remember the link to it right now. I think something like 4 facilities exist using that particular setup. I imagine that Poser characters would be a good basis for the continuation of VR development because they can fit in so many situations. Imagine someone putting sensors on their body and having Solemn do his thing, or making Vickie or Mike move around.....wow......

In case anyone cares, a developer of a popular first-person-shooter game I can't name told me that they use 3DStudioMax exclusively for their character design and that the characters are 300-400 polygons, tops. Bump maps are too expensive as processor time goes, although they were considering designing a module that would use them for closeups only.

Well if you add some more of those rings like you said, and give him some cool clothing, or textures Solemn would be really cool :) And both the X-Box as the PS2 and probably the Dreamcast too could handle a polygon version of Solemn pretty nicely. The Engineer.

Plus, a 2,000 polygon version of Keanu Reeves couldn't act any less convincingly than the real one.