(Blush) You guys are too much, did I mention you all rock too :D

Alright, Time for a bigtime pic fiesta, I feel the model is almost complete, I just think It's missing something, perhaps (and I asked Sithlord-II and he agreed) it just needs a good texture to show depth.

Let me know what all you guys think about the proportions, the size of the robe, anything really that you think is missing or a little off. I'm shooting for his body size/shape from Phantom Menace, with just a few minor details from the RotJ robe (the crease on his back, just looks cool)

http://drivingcatstudios.com/71perspec.jpg)
http://drivingcatstudios.com/newfront.jpg)
http://drivingcatstudios.com/72top.jpg)
http://drivingcatstudios.com/72sideview.jpg)
http://drivingcatstudios.com/72behind.jpg)

Two notes though, I keep mentioning it for some of the newer people on the thread, sorry if I sound like a broken record ;) The arms are going to undergo major tweaks once I get the model weighted, so it looks good ingame, (but still tell me if you think the shape isnt right in the front) second, the skin on the face isnt even close to finished, which is minor, but I havent shaded his head yet to give off that mysterious look that Sid is famous for :D

The next pics will have textures I promise :D We're almost there guys!

"Jumping has made you powerful my young nomad.....er, or was that hate? The Dark side has made me senile" ;)

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

WOW! Very Nice!

Originally posted by Toonces
The arms are going to undergo major tweaks once I get the model weighted, so it looks good ingame,
so the sleeves wont look silly when his arms are at his sides? :D

Ok, this is for extreem detail, the folds in the robe. As you can see the are in the same spot most of the time(near the arms and on the sleeves), just to let the extra robe out. Also there are a few folds in the hood as you can see. I also must once again urge you to close the robe as the two layered robe isn't a god idea for game play. If you close the robe be sure to include the line where it looks like his robe opens down the centre.

http://www.magma.ca/~lcauley/Temp/sidfolds.JPG)
http://www.magma.ca/~lcauley/Temp/sidfolds2.JPG)


Also notice how in your model his robes come down like a triangle but they are more rounded here. ITs kind of like a tube or something. They don't even come out that much though either.

http://www.magma.ca/~lcauley/Temp/sidshape.JPG)
http://www.magma.ca/~lcauley/Temp/sidshape2.JPG)
http://www.magma.ca/~lcauley/Temp/sidshape3.JPG)

Lastly the boots, Im sure you will have to animate boots under the robes so one thing to remember is that they used German Riding boots for the Sith. If you want to look at them those can be found on ebay if need be.

Woops I made the links wrong it should be shap not sape ;p. They should work now.

Alright Toonces, I'm not posting this to make you feel bad or to hurt your feeling or in any way offend you or your work. I just want this model to be as good as it can be. First of all, the torso is too wide. It needs to be more of a bell shaped (looks nice just make it smaller on the sides). I took your screen and redid a little bit of it (just in windows Paint hehe) just to give you a small idea or my perspective of sidious.
http://www.nbeecee.com/JK2/sid.jpg)
Also I noticed a polygon sticking out in that same screen...
http://www.nbeecee.com/JK2/sid2.jpg)
Now I know how hard it is to do that kind of stuff (mainly because it's difficult to get to). I had that same problem with Nikto when I was extending his neck and making it smaller, and yeap it was a pain in the ass to get fixed (took me hours to get one poly like that out). Again I am in no way worthy to disrespect your work, I jsut want it to be as great as possible.

hehe Link thats what I thought as well, 2 great minds think alike =), it wont hurt his feeling he wants the cirisism and when he gets it we can sure see what he is capable of. This is turning out to be agreat model.

Yeah, I'll definatly remember to keep the seam there. I think I'll close the robe, I can always experement with it later if I change my mind.

Thanks the the rear view shots :) I've pulled the corners of the robe out a little bit to give a little depth to the robe. All the little folds will be done with the skin, it should look pretty cool when I'm done with it. :D

T3rr0r, I'm gonna do my best :D I've got some ideas about how to animate the sleeves. At worst when your standing with your hilt and the saber off they might look a little strange, but durring combat I'm pretty comfident that They'll look cool :)

I'm UVmapping right now, I'm not all that great at mapping, so if it looks wierd when I'm done I'll find some help

edit: just saw your post Link-er, It's all good, I'm definatly intrested in all suggestions :D I had his body tapered in like you have it there at first, I brought it out maby a little too much.

I pulled his waist in just a touch. To make it really look like a robe I can't taper it quite like you have it, I still have to line up the shoulder joint. I pulled it in a bit, he looks less like a fatass now :) I'll post a shot of it once I finish maping and you guys can tell me what you think :)

Oh, that little poly you noticed was a tag. I havent re-adjusted them since I rebuilt the model, oops :p

edit #2: Just saw your edit DarExc. The shape of the robe at the bottem is that way because of the raven skeleton, It'll definatly be strait in the game. I'll do a quick search for thoes boots right now, thanks for the tip :D

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

Recheck out the last 3 pictures in my previous post, I fixed the link =).

http://www.jedi-academy.com/jedi_belt_boots.html)

Nice boots :)

Sidshape is gold btw DarExc, just the exact shot I needed :D

I'll have a few more shots up for you guys asap

Don't close the robes!
It looks to me like you are creating an Emperor of ROTJ just a little bit more than a Darth Sidious of the Prequels. Sure you can re-skin it and make both, but The Emperor as seen in ROTJ definitely has his robe slightly open in the front with his under robes and belt benath... like you've had the model looking.
Just my vote anyway, for what ever it's worth.
I know you've said you want to get all the little details right, so you're going to have to make some decisions one way or the other.
Looking forward to the new screens... thanks for all the preview pics, I'm enjoying watching it's development.

Good luck mapping too.

-nomad

I was really tired last night so I didnt really touch the model, finished the uvmap on the torso and hip sections of the robe, should have a basic texture on it soon.

It's funny, everybody is split on what I should do with the robes, even here in my house :) It's such a minor detail that I've decided that I'm going to try both and see what happens. I'm also going to do more than one face, the RotJ face you guys have already seen an early version of, and the younger Palp with normal colored skin like the prequels. Should look cool :D

Back to sleep, I've still got a few hours before I have to get up :o

zzzz....
CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com) :cheers:

just wondering.......

Excellent idea! Here is a picture of Sidiouses face.

http://www.starwars.com/databank/character/darthsidious/img/eu_bg.jpg)

heh, I figured you'd like that DarExc :D As much as I love the face from RotJ, his face in Phantom and AotC has an element of mystery that I would like to be able to pull off with the model, hopefully that skin will do it :D

To answer your question nucular_jedi, I'm in the process of skinning as I type, then I will weight the model and put him in game for testing and adjustment. I really can't promise a release date because as soon as I do I'll run into some huge problem that will push that date back so for right now all I can say is soon :)

Sorry I can't be more specific then that, but I hope when I'm finished you guys will all love him, and you'll consider him worth the wait :D

I'll try and post some skinned shots as soon as I have something I am happy with

Plenty of goodness to come
CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

Yay, let's get this model out already!

Be sure when you skin it to get all the stitching details of the robe, notice in some of those pictures the little squares or what ever that make up the robe, the texture of it or what ever you call that. Im not a clothing expert as you can no doubt tell ;p

I've got a bunch of refrence images now, I'm even thinking of experementing with a hair engine (see chewie model, alough much much smaller hairs) to simulate a little bit of fuzz. on the robe :D

I've got him completely skin mapped, and will start weighting verts tonight. Next screenshots will be ingame shots (with a basic skin) look for them within the next few days

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

Toonces,
You are serving the Empire well. *salutes*

Two things: The Magic Of Myth Exhibit ends on Sunday, just in case you're not aware. I'm not trying to push the issue for you to go, but it was one of the best experiences, so I highly recomend it.

After the almighty Emperor, can you make a Holik model so that we can chop him up into bits? Or actually we could blast him into charcoal with Sith Lightning :lightning

-nomad

haha! i've never been tempted but i'm gonna put at least one spam on as many posts as possible!
I'm sorry:(

Originally posted by Klorel
hmmm. i wouldnt be so sure. lucas has contradicted himself before with his strange twists.... c3po built by anakin, Quigon, not yoda instructed obiwan and such. besides, there needs to be a really crazy twist in this one. one that will make all the fans shocked. the emperor seems like an obvious answer. palpatine could have a twin, who knows, dont merge the two just yet, call me crazy, but lucas hasn't laid it all out in plain daylight yet. hey, maybe sidious is anakin's father.... "there was no father"... well if you ask me, shmi is pretty weakminded >>
:sithm: [waves hand]~ "you did not just sleep with dark lord sidious" ....
:elaine: ~"i did not just sleep with dark lord sidious"


hope to see a model update soon! :D

hehe.... sidious IS anakins father.... wait and see.... (Im not joking)

-Mr.EFF

Yeah baby, update time, Ok, I've got him into modview now and he's deforming much better than I expected, especially considering I've never weighted a model before. I'm confident that he'll be ingame with a basic skin by tommorow. (tonight if I have time) I'll post some ingame alpha shots as soon as he's in game :)

nomad, do you mean Bobby Holik? I went around to starwars.com and poked around and found nothing so I assume that's who you meant :) My bud Craig would love a Holik model to cut into peices, he cant beleive he'd go to the Rangers of all teams

Mr.EFF, I wouldnt be too suprised if that actually was the case, considering how powerfull the Emperor is (he made Vader look like an Amature in RtoJ) and how intune with the force the Skywalker family seems.

I was actually thinking the other day about the "Prophecy" of the one who would bring "Balance" to the force. (forgive me if this has been discussed before) Could it be that instead of Anakin bringing balance to the force, could it perhaps be Palpatine? I guess it depends on how you define "balance." Assuming that he revived the Sith, he would in theroy "Balance" the force, by providing an avenue for the Dark Side to flow. (equal parts Dark and Light) It just seems that of all the Jedi, Dark, light, grey (heh) ect... that he could be the most powerful of all Jedi. Somewhere on starwars.com it says that his body was ravaged because he had an enormous amount of power

Just a theroy, I'm sure this has been debated before

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

Actually, George has mentioned what Balance of the Force means. It means the absence of the Dark Side. So yes, Anakin is in fact the chosen one.

As for the model, it sounds like he is coming along just fine.

I've got him into modview now and he's deforming much better than I expected, especially considering I've never weighted a model before.

That is great news Toonces.
That makes me pretty excited actually. We could use some nice robes in this game.

I'm sorry I made you poke around at starwars.com heh, I was talking about Bobby Holik LOL!
I've been trying to figure out who it is in your avatar pic... but I can't make it out. Albelin? Oliwa? Neiwendiek? The pope?

I know my brother and I had a theory that Palpatine (With his ultimate powers) orchestrated Anakin's "miraculous" birth to make him appear as the one that will bring balance, only to control and turn him... of course not realizing (due to his overconfidence) that he was actually creating the one that WOULD bring balance and ultimately seal his fate. Although it would happen later through the bravery of Anakin's son.

Not that we believe that to be the case. We just kind of liked the way it worked. Just our little theory, but I'm not so sure that we'll ever have that stuff explained in the movies.
I don't care... what ever Lucas wants to do... he's earned my respect :)

For those that think they KNOW...
Attempt unlearning what you have "learned"...
Life can be much more interesting that way.

Feel free to keep the updates coming Toonces :lightning

-nomad

heh, I figured you mean't Holik, it's all good though, I was looking at pictures for a possible new project :)

I'll most likely be content with wherever Mr. Lucas decides to take episode III. I've heard your brothers theroy a bunch of times, as long as it can be explained in the movie without being silly, it's all good. :)

Oh, and that picture is actually of me, from a charity game a couple years ago
http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/regulateone.jpg)

The model is now in alpha, with an extremely basic skin. I've found a few minor problems (flipped cap faces, a couple ugly deformations, a big line between the back and right arm) but for the most part he's deforming well. He's also missing his inner robe in these shots, so you can see through him in the middle. (inner section is in progress) The inner robe will be Emperor Palpatine only, Darth Sidious will most likely have a completely, or mostly closed robe (and a diffrent glm)

http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/alpha20.jpg)
http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/alpha6.jpg)
http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/alpha9.jpg)
http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/alpha10.jpg)
http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/alpha7.jpg)

Thoes are my 5 favorate shots, there are about 21 total in the alpha gallery on my website incase you guys want to see a few more shots :)

I have to adjust the bottom half of the robe a bit, make it a bit bigger in some places. The lightning seems to shoot out from the wrong place as well. (a little too far down and too the left) Backstab works properly though ;)

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

looking great so far, toonces. keep up the good work!

Don't forget to do a Sidious skin with normal coloured skin! =) Also can you post a picture of the model in that model viewer so I can see it a little better, the ingame is a bit dark for me. Other than that I am thrilled to see this working and in game.

Is there any highlights where there are folds in the robe because I just see solid black?

heh, don't worry DarExc, I got the Sidious face coming. (normal colors and all :D ) I'll take a few shots in modview for you, so you can see him closer up. One of the things that the Q3 engine loves to do is wash out the colors quite a bit, so I have to darken the highlights on his face up some.

morphius, I'm definatly going to highlight the robe, it's going to look much diffrent once I get a decent looking skin on him. I just wanted to get him ingame so I could work on a few modeling issues before I started painting my nice patterns. :) I simply applied a very dark blue color layer, and added some stock burlap texture with photoshop. I'll begin painting the pattern (the real patern) sometime today, which will include highlights for the various folds and creases in the robe.

Much more to come :D

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

The alpha shots look good, however I was wondering about the robe animations. It looks as if his robes spilt while walking as if it was a pair of pants not a robe.

http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/alpha11.jpg)

This might be the inner robe thing you were talking about but not sure.

Nice to see the progress :D
If the ship in the alpha13 pic was an Imperial Shuttle... that would be priceless.
Looks sweet so far. Thanks for the pics.

Any major clipping going on that you can't figure out yet? Or is the robe moving pretty much as you figured?
I'm really eager to see how this robe turns out, because I would love to try making another robed model myself. So details about what problems you have or how you've avoided having them would be much appreciated.

About the avatar, that's funny, I just assumed it was a Devil... but then again... you are close to the darkside :lightning

I was only kidding about making Holik. I'm only into Star Wars characters for this game. If you are looking for ideas... I've got lists of 'em.

Did you make it to the exhibit? With the work you've done, I'm guessing "No".

Great job so far, man.

-nomad

Oh! One other thing. You mentioned that you used a dark blue for this initial skin (which I know is just to check him out with in game -yadda, yadda, yadda), but I was just wondering if for the final skin you were thinking about using a blue shade, because his robe is definitely black. It just gets the blue shading from the lighting through his window and such.
I think we've all talked about this earlier in this thread LOL

I love this stuff

BUMP!

And rock on Toonces, the Master of Disaster is looking better and better!

:slsaber: :lightning

Triiiple, That's exactly what I meant, I have not added the inner layer of the robe as of yet, or capped the bottem of the robe, so you can see through parts of the robe. I'm still playing with the weights, right now I have the bottem of the robe set up almost like a model with pants. I'm going to experement with some other areas. He actually looks rather good the way I have it now, the robe moves with his feet, with no cliping at all, it moves quite a bit like a real robe, with the exception of certian moves. (jump) Take a look at BloodRiots (and of cource Asbath) Robed Tyrion model, it moves for the most part the exact same way :)

nomad, I actually thought of the same thing when I saw the shot, I just need an imperial shuttle prefab now :)

The robe has come out much better than I thought it would with the first weighting. When I exported the model again today with some bug fixed (fixed all the normals, got the head lined up right, and got rid of all the visable segmentation lines) the robe looked proportinally correct (the bottom has to come out some though) to me, and much to my supprise the sleeves almost look perfect now. (medium sabre stance really looks the best, the sleeves are perfect, and he's bigtime hunched over) I was expecting to have to tweak the hell out of them, but with the exception of adding caps to the sleeves, and some other positional tweaks I'm going to make, they look great :D

Unfortunatly I couldn't make it up to the exibit on time, I was a little too busy to get up there. I've heard that the Smithsonian has the same (or simmilar) exhibit, and I might actually be able to get down there sometime this summer.

Oh, the color I used on the robe was R 0 G 0 B 2, so it's essentially black. For the CTF blue skin, I'm going to try and match the color of the reflected light in some of thoes shots. The main robe will definatly be black, with some highlights of cource ;)

Time for some zzz's

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

Now your gettin there Toonces!

Keep it up!

SIDIOUS/PALPATINE LIVES!!

awesome model you've created toonces. it took a bit getting used to the idea of this guy wielding a saber, but i REALLY dig it now.

and in all honesty, i don't have anything to say ... i am literally speechless. keep up the great work!

nomad: It's the Lady Luck

Any updates?

In those in-game shots, I notice that his face is quite deformed. Although he was pretty ugly in the movie, he wasn't quite THAT ugly.

Also, the cloak isn't too good. It looks like just a black cutout on the screen.

Perhaps you could add some more shades into it, like some grey, and give it some texture it would be better.

heh, I was just about to post one DarExc. I'm almost finished with the Sidious face. Just the lower section of the head is visable. I'm getting close, I'll post a shot of his face soon.

The model for the most part is done, I just have to skin it now. I've almost finished with the faces and hands, but I havent really started on the robe yet. I'm not so great with cloth.

I'm also having a little problem with the mp icon. For some reason I get an icon on the main menu, and can even use him as a bot in mp games. The problem is that his icon seems to be missing in the avatar select tab IN game. I have to type model palpatine to get him to load, wierd

I'll try and get a couple shots of his face up asap

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

Elkin, If you read a few posts up you'd understand why it looks that way. I haven't put more than a very basic skin on him. It looks like a black cutout because that's basically what it is. It's an extremely basick skin, just color, that's it, this will change.

As for the face you see now, that's not finished yet, but it's close. I think I have a pretty good likeness so far, and have received countless compliments on it, but you cant please everyone

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

sidious, anakin's father? *shiver*
:freakout:
:lsduel: :emperor: family reunion

You've got me, that's a theroy

Alright, time for an update :) The model is officially in beta as of tonight. I spent most of my time tonight in max fixing some modeling bugs. The model is now 90% complete. All surfaces have been modeled. He'll be 100% as soon as I realign some tags, and play with the weights on the back of the hood. With his rounded shoulders, the hood clips a bit too much, I have to find another bone to weight it to.

I added some minor highlighting to the robe, it's no longer a "black cutout" as was described earlier, it now has recognisable folds, as well as a cloth pattern that I beleive it close to the actuall robe.

It's go time, I'm going to try my hardest to get this model out asap. Most of what's left to do now is skining :D

Shots to come tommorow, (I promise) and bright ones too DarExc ;)

I'll keep everyone posted

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

:elephant:
The pink elephants love beta!!

Great news, Toonces! I can't wait to use my favorite hero :lightning

:holosid: I sent you a PM yesterday to ask about some modeling steps. I still can't find any info on how to import the root.xsi!
(I've been working on two different musical recording projects, messing around with Gmax, and learning how to juggle... seriously)

Are you good as far as sounds are concerned?
Let me know if you need any help on that end, as I've done some work on other models in that area.
:smirk:

Looking forward to the next update too. This has been a great thread :)

-nomad

MTFBW

Good job Toonces, another top notch classic Star Wars character model. I love Jedi Knight II!

Heh, thanks Xyphox :D

A little mini update, no new screenies yet, but tonight when I get home for sure. I've teamed up with nomad to help with the sounds. This'll speed up the project signifigantly :) He also has a digital copy (I think that's what he said) of RotJ so we'll be able to get higher quality sounds. I'm going to try and go through TPM tonight and take notes for Darth Sidious. I'd love to have completely diffrent sounds for him, hopefully we'll be able to pull that off, will definatly add more charecter to the models :D

Let me know if you guys have any good suggestions for Sidious, I've got a pretty good Idea about the Emperors sound pack, but not for Sidious

I hate to say this, because I might end up jinxing myself, but as long as we can get the sounds ready in time, I beleive we're looking at a release date sometime next week. I work good under pressure, so perhaps seting a soft release date is a good idea :)

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

If I had a scanner that didn't require inserting the paper into it, I'd send you two cool pictures from the New Essential Guide to Characters...

Hey Toonces,


Do you need Palpatine lines for a voice pack? I think this link will help. It has pretty much every Episode I Senator Palpatine and Darth Sidious line in .wav format. It also has a lot of Emperor lines from ROTJ (including my fav, "Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side.") No Episode II, though.

http://mellody.co.za/michaela/palpatine/sounds.htm)

You might find this to save you a lot of time. I don't know. Tell me if they work or not, eh?

Thanks Angel :) It gave me a good idea on what I could use for Sidious. Unfortunatly thoes wav files are much too low quality to come with the model, but thanks for the link :D

Here's a new pic, I havent really touched the faces yet, thoes I'll do last. I did add plenty (maby too much) highlights twards the bottem of the robe

http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/sidsnewrobe.JPG)
http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/sidlovestexture.JPG)

Sorry the pics are so big, I wanted to get them up fast and they were a little inpromptu (I didnt intend to take any shots)

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)

Nice very very nice! Unfortuneately I'm using crap_comp_01 so the screenies are really really dark...don't worry about the size of the pics -- any update is a good update!

Great job! Keep up the good work!

Nice model, but yes a little bit too many highlights at the bottom. It makes it look uneven.

Time for a quick update. I was able to work quite a bit on the skin this morning (no face work yet, soon) I took some time and put up some new shots, hopefully they are a little brighter this time (Let me know if they are still too dark DarExc)

http://www.drivingcatstudios.com/gallery2.htm)

There are still a couple of modeling flaws to work out, every time I update the skin I seem to find a new one. Right now the hands are the problem, they bleed through the sleeve a little and dont grip the saber right. Other than that he's coming along nicely :D

When I get home tonight I'm going to work like crazy :)

CT :lightning
www.drivingcatstudios.com)