Character Art
by Jimmy Chen · in Torque X Platformer Kit · 09/13/2007 (1:19 am) · 5 replies
I really like the Dragon and DrillEnemy characters in the demo. I was wondering what kind of software was used to create those characters and also their animations. Is it Adobe Photoshop? Illustrator? How are the shading and gradient done in the character art? Can someone point me in the right direction on what software to use, website or book to read?
#2
I'm sure he could answer this way better than I can, but as far as I know it was modeled, rigged, and animated in Maya, then renders were taken of the animations at certain frames and those were compiled into sheets and cleaned up using Photoshop. This is where I get fuzzy: I *think* the shading is simply done with lighting in Maya (no shading in the texture, I think they were just solid colors) and the black outlines seen in the Demo project (Starter project has no outlines) were done using some sort of render setting. Again, that last part I'm not sure about.
09/17/2007 (4:16 pm)
I forwarded a link to this thread to the artist who did all the character art for the kit, but he's extremely busy so I don't know if he'll have time to fully answer.I'm sure he could answer this way better than I can, but as far as I know it was modeled, rigged, and animated in Maya, then renders were taken of the animations at certain frames and those were compiled into sheets and cleaned up using Photoshop. This is where I get fuzzy: I *think* the shading is simply done with lighting in Maya (no shading in the texture, I think they were just solid colors) and the black outlines seen in the Demo project (Starter project has no outlines) were done using some sort of render setting. Again, that last part I'm not sure about.
#3
1. I model, rig and animate the character in Cinema 4D and 3DSMax.
2. I render it in C4D and apply the Sketch&Toon effect where you can define comic-style outlines, cel-art shaders etc. (3DSMax, Maya etc. also have these cartoon-shaders).
3. The animations are exported as single images instead of a video.
4. In Photoshop you import these single images with File - Automate - Contact Sheet to create an animation that can be used in the platformer kit.
You can follow these steps (including several videos) in my blog.
09/17/2007 (11:54 pm)
I don't know how the dragon was created, but I can explain the workflow of my characters for the platformer kit which is similar to the above explanation from Thomas:1. I model, rig and animate the character in Cinema 4D and 3DSMax.
2. I render it in C4D and apply the Sketch&Toon effect where you can define comic-style outlines, cel-art shaders etc. (3DSMax, Maya etc. also have these cartoon-shaders).
3. The animations are exported as single images instead of a video.
4. In Photoshop you import these single images with File - Automate - Contact Sheet to create an animation that can be used in the platformer kit.
You can follow these steps (including several videos) in my blog.
#4
09/20/2007 (5:41 pm)
Nice work, Zilla. Have you thought about posting a .plan? I'm sure there are plenty of community members that could find inspiration from your blog. :) 
Torque Owner Mark Hanham