WIP Geralt of Rivia

[The Nameless Pirate]

My new project is as referenced in this thread: Solved - How to export .GM in Maya

Correct, sometimes things are simple, but we overthink and we miss them.

I will read the tutorial and try again, and once i get the hang of it, i may add a new playable character and maybe a quest related to him and his adopted daughter.
Also, i may try to make the stern of "PiratFrigateSat" similar to the stern of "Frigate_Sat" but 3D.

Well, this may spoil the character i am going to add, but i tried to start by converting, simple one part models and success!!!

Spoiler

View attachment 34493

P.S.: Moral of the story, always check pinned threads and tutorials are really helpful when you are a beginner.

Bringing Geralt of Rivia in POTC, more specifically Geralt from The Witcher 1 with the Raven's Armor of the Elves.

Image: Steam Community :: Screenshot :: Raven's Armor of the Elves

If that fails, then i will import only the head and use the body of an existing character, as @DeathDaisy did with Ciri.

Edit: The mod direction has changed and the model of Geralt is an existing re-textured model, after the difficulties i faced porting the model.

Images: In game: post #55 Interface: post #62

CREDITS: @Grey Roger, gave me the Flambard model, and made the interface textures. @Jack Rackham, made Geralt's sword sit on his back.

For those who are wondering what is a witcher: post #128

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Cool, man!!

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

It has begun...



Essentially, i removed some parts of the model that where not visible in The Witcher 1, i don't know what they did in that game but in Maya they made the model look worse and were eating disk space.
Also, i believe they would be visible in POTC had i not removed them or applied a transparent texture to them.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

I have added a poll, regarding whether or not the equipped sword should be on Geralt's back, if most of you say yes i will also try to make a new animation with the TOOL.

 

[Grey Roger]

Bringing Geralt of Rivia in POTC, more specifically Geralt from The Witcher 1 with the Raven's Armor of the Elves.

Does he also appear without that armour, or with any other types of armour?

Once you have a base model, armoured variants are easy. If "Geralt.gm" is the character without armour then "Geralt_A1.gm" is the same character with cheap armour, "Geralt_A2.gm" is him with battle armour and "Geralt_A3.gm" is him with gold armour. Some character models do clever things to superimpose a cuirass model onto a character model but the easiest way is simply to duplicate the character model and have it use a texture file which shows the relevant armour. This is what the various incarnations of Jack Sparrow do, for example. If a character is using any of the metal armours then the game automatically looks for the "A1", "A2" and "A3" variants and displays the one for whichever armour is in use.

Which means you could start by showing Geralt without armour, then make additional textures for different types of armour. Presumably the elven armour is the best he can have, so that would be his equivalent of gold armour.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Should i try to place the equipped sword be on the back of Geralt?

If anyone knows how to do that, @Jack Rackham would.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Does he also appear without that armour, or with any other types of armour?

Once you have a base model, armoured variants are easy. If "Geralt.gm" is the character without armour then "Geralt_A1.gm" is the same character with cheap armour, "Geralt_A2.gm" is him with battle armour and "Geralt_A3.gm" is him with gold armour. Some character models do clever things to superimpose a cuirass model onto a character model but the easiest way is simply to duplicate the character model and have it use a texture file which shows the relevant armour. This is what the various incarnations of Jack Sparrow do, for example. If a character is using any of the metal armours then the game automatically looks for the "A1", "A2" and "A3" variants and displays the one for whichever armour is in use.

Which means you could start by showing Geralt without armour, then make additional textures for different types of armour. Presumably the elven armour is the best he can have, so that would be his equivalent of gold armour.

Great idea, in fact The witcher 1 has three armors (technically five, depending on your choices there are three variants of Raven's armor -the best armor-, but i will add only the elven armor variant ).

So the number of armors available is perfect for that.

EDIT: Link to list of armors: The Witcher armor

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

The hands of the characters are i different positions, is this a problem?


And if it is, how do you move their hands?

 

[Jack Rackham]

Should i try to place the equipped sword be on the back of Geralt?

How should that work? Something like the muskets I placed on POTC characters when equipped but not firing?
That was and is a terrible work around, using two different models and switching them. Those muskets are not attached
directly to the character models.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

If you move the Saber_belt locator then, the sword will be where you placed the locator when it is sheathed?

That's what i thought, i haven't tried it as i want to import the models first.

 

[Grey Roger]

In theory it might be possible to mount a weapon on the character's back by moving the "Saber_belt" locator. This is presumably why @The Nameless Pirate mentioned a new animation - you'd need a different move to draw a sword from the back, compared to drawing it from the hip. It probably can't be done in TOOL, but perhaps if Maya can be used to create that animation, it could work.

 

[Jack Rackham]

Sounds very possible.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

In theory it might be possible to mount a weapon on the character's back by moving the "Saber_belt" locator. This is presumably why @The Nameless Pirate mentioned a new animation - you'd need a different move to draw a sword from the back, compared to drawing it from the hip. It probably can't be done in TOOL, but perhaps if Maya can be used to create that animation, it could work.

Exactly, @Grey Roger!

The hands of the characters are i different positions, is this a problem?
View attachment 34495

And if it is, how do you move their hands?

So in the tool help it said for new models to be saved in the "T" pose.



So i have two options, one is to add bones and the other is to somehow move the hands in to the "T" pose?

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

About the sword no back, as of now works and not works without me changing animations.
The sword is on the back of the player...

but this happens when it's drawn.

 

[Grey Roger]

Did you alter the "Saber_hand" locator? Or perhaps, if you have not changed the animation, it's going wrong because the sabre is not starting from the normal position - that's why you need a different animation.

For that matter, check what happens when you fire the pistol - does it still appear where it is meant to be?

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Or perhaps, if you have not changed the animation, it's going wrong because the sabre is not starting from the normal position - that's why you need a different animation.

That sounds like the most likely case.
I think that's the same reason @Jack Rackham had to do that on-the-fly model-swapping to get those muskets to behave themselves.

 

[Jack Rackham]

I never did try yo move the gun_belt locator because then also the pistols would have
been carried on your back.

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

Did you alter the "Saber_hand" locator? Or perhaps, if you have not changed the animation, it's going wrong because the sabre is not starting from the normal position - that's why you need a different animation.

For that matter, check what happens when you fire the pistol - does it still appear where it is meant to be?

Yes, guns are screwed up too, i only edited the Saber_belt locator so the game must not like that.

Anyway, right now my focus is to actually get the models in the game.

 

[Pieter Boelen]

Anyway, right now my focus is to actually get the models in the game.

That's definitely the most important bit!

 

[The Nameless Pirate]

I have decided to, re-texture an existing body only use the head and medallion of Geralt, due to difficulties.

some useful info I found on the way: POTC (and storm engine in general it seems, as its the same deal in CT and CoAS and also in @ChezJfrey s cool maelstrom engine which @Modder01's impressive supermod for CT is running on) cannot handle character .gm models larger than ~205-208kb. Ive absolutely no clue about why, it makes no sense and its driving me insane. Ive spent so much time shaving off a polygon here and a polygon there to save bytes, and sometimes the maya exporter just ends up changing the size of identical models. its why I had to use beatrice body instead of ciris clothes from the game, and why my hair is now as gray as ciris.

To be precise even if everything went smoothly, the game would have still crashed since, the model was 1.40 MB much larger than 208 KB as @DeathDaisy stated.

But engine limitations don't stop a Witcher-Pirate!!!
I will try to make the best Geralt, my skills and the engine allows!