Median XL 2016 Announced

[darkstorm]

Sprites aren't fun to modify. I think the characters have the most animations so replacing all of them may prove trivial.

you mean non-trivial

indeed.
but imagine,
"all the people"
playing whole the game with nee--e--ew...
chars appearance that's would be great thing!

[Marco]

sick idea indeed... wondering why noone came up with that before

[darkstorm]

sick idea indeed... wondering why noone came up with that before

noone wasn't you, @Marco. that changes everything...

[whist]

sick idea indeed... wondering why noone came up with that before

noone wasn't you, @Marco. that changes everything...

You kind of missed the sarcasm here. Literally everyone thought about this, that's a quite common idea. But making new models is tricky. To start off you need someone with the time and the talent. And then the implementation in-game is also quite tricky. That would be a loooot of work, involving more than one person, and all that for a change that's only visual in the end and doesn't really add to the gameplay.

[cowking]

But making new models is tricky. To start off you need someone with the time and the talent. And then the implementation in-game is also quite tricky. That would be a loooot of work, involving more than one person.

Characters and monsters, such as this Vampire, were created in 3D Studio Max. An in-house tool would render the files from many different angles (eight for all monsters, 16 for player characters), and export them in the file formats used in the game.

I think the only tricky thing would be figuring out the proper rendering angles and technical details.

Modeling/texturing for d2 wouldn't be nearly as difficult as for a modern game. Still would need half decent animations though, but anyone who knows his way around a 3d program with decent skill could accomplish this. It's more informationally hard than 3d hard.

If normal 3d would be

modeling = medium
texturing = medium/hard
animating = very hard

Then d2 would be

modeling = easy
texturing = easy
animating = medium

Don't know anything about implementation though.

[Sir Legar]

@cowking Modeling requires talent and further knowladge. Implementing new models and animations are very tricky in Diablo 2.
Imho it is not hard to export for example monster animations from other isometric games and implement them into d2.

Choosing proper AI, properly exporting models, Cof & DCC files, animdata etc are PITA and takes time to get used to them. (There are so much things to consider. Color palettes, x/y coordinates, ai behaviours etc)

So in short, using pre-made models wont be that hard but creating your own is whole another concept.

You might want to check this out: http://d2mods.info/resources/infinitum/ ... index.html

[Inertia]

Creating an entirely new character model with all the necessary animations is not anywhere near as easy as making a simple monster (and making a new monster is hard enough tbh).

First of all, you have to render everything in 16 directions along with all the necessary weaponry and armour that has to all be rendered separately, as characters are made up of layers that are rendered in a certain order. If you make a sword model for example, you then have to set up all the animations for just that one model. Remember, for characters there are walking animations, running, neutral, gethit, death (although the death animation isn't complicated), attacking animations (2 per attack iirc) and casting animations, not to mention some of the special animations that also exist. This takes an extremely long time to make and really isn't something I can see anyone doing on their own. I'm also not even going into the long process of rigging, modelling, and animating that would have to be done as well. Of course, if anyone wants to try it, by all means, prove us wrong.

The only thing I know of that came close to a new character was that one custom nude assassin mod that basically replaced all the normal assassin sprites with new naked ones. I have no idea how many people actually worked on it, but iirc there were plenty of problems and limits to it and tbh it wasn't consistent with the other characters in style and quality.

Also, like whist said, this is just the art aspect of things. I'm sure there are plenty of complications with the coding aspect.

[cowking]

@cowking Modeling requires talent and further knowladge. Implementing new models and animations are very tricky in Diablo 2.

Yeah but the point is that modeling for D2 is a lot less technically demanding than creating 4-8k diffuse maps for modern game engines, sculpting models in zbrush for normal/displacement maps, creating low poly meshes and materials with 7 different maps that need to look photorealistic, learning how to do good looking hair etc... the list goes on.

In D2 you need...

- a rigged character model that doesn't need to be optimized for a game engine, plus weapons
- create animations (time consuming part)

You now have everything you need 3d wise. You can render the animations out as a .gif sequence or frame-by-frame. The fact that diablo uses .gif is just another bonus, as you don't need some 3d export plugin that only supports 3ds Max 2001 or something. You can use any 3d package you're familiar with.

Choosing proper AI, properly exporting models, Cof & DCC files, animdata etc are PITA and takes time to get used to them. (There are so much things to consider. Color palettes, x/y coordinates, ai behaviours etc)

This is the real challenge, and it's already figured out and explained step-by-step.

Only thing that's required is execution. That's it.

First of all, you have to render everything in 16 directions

The animation remains the same so that's irrelevant, just place sixteen cameras. The animations are short so rendering time is irrelevant. You could set everything up and batch render everything in one go when you go to sleep.

along with all the necessary weaponry and armour that has to all be rendered separately.

Scene 1 = char animation x
Scene 2 = copied scene 1 with all meshes hidden except weapon
Scene 3 = copied scene 1 with all meshes hidden except armor part x (if required, you could use the body mesh as a matte object when rendering)
Scene 4 = char animation y... repeat

Create a simple script that batch renders all scenes from 1-x through camera 1-16 when you go to sleep. You can even setup folder/naming conventions in render options so everything comes together in a perfect structure automatically.

The only 3d related problem solving that relates to D2 is figuring out the camera angles, and replicating the d2 art style in a way that things don't seem horribly out of place.

[Inertia]

@cowking Like I said, if you think you can do it, by all means go ahead. I'd like to see a new character by the next median release. Actually, I'd be happy with a new character ready for sigma's release.

[Sir Legar]

Choosing proper AI, properly exporting models, Cof & DCC files, animdata etc are PITA and takes time to get used to them. (There are so much things to consider. Color palettes, x/y coordinates, ai behaviours etc)

This is the real challenge, and it's already figured out and explained step-by-step.

Only thing that's required is execution. That's it.

Well, things not always work that way. I tried several things while creating my own animations and things get really complicated sometimes. Gives me cancer...

along with all the necessary weaponry and armour that has to all be rendered separately.

Scene 1 = char animation x
Scene 2 = copied char animation x with all meshes hidden except weapon
Scene 3 = copied char animation x with all meshes hidden except armor part y
Scene 4 = char animation y... repeat

Create a simple script that batch renders all scenes from 1-x through camera 1-16 when you go to sleep. You can even setup folder/naming conventions in render options so everything comes together in a perfect structure automatically.

The richness of your animations files can be seen by how much animation modes you have. For example you can import a model even without a walking animation but if AI is not idle, glitches would happen etc etc. Aaand there are body parts to consider also...