Ira Krakow's BGE 2.49b Character Creation

[irakrakow]

Watch the Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd8_NPuG0mk

Read the Script: http://blender3dvideos.blogspot.com/2010/02/bge-249-character-creation.html

Creating a character for Blender's Game Engine is different from creating a character in Blender 3D. In Blender 3D, you have a wider range of options for creating detailed characters, such as adding geometry for details, using curves and surfaces, and sculpt mode. These high-polygon models work well for rendering. However, if such a model is placed in the Game Engine, the animation would slow down to an unacceptable level. Some commonly used techniques, such as subsurf, are not available in the BGE. BGE characters should be low-polygon for best performance.

However, they can't be too low-poly, because the characters will look too much like rectangles and squares. In addition, you need enough geometry to do realistic animations in the BGE, such as walk cycles and lattice deformations. So creating a character for the Blender Game Engine is a tradeoff. In this tutorial, which is based on Tony Mullen's discussion in Mastering Blender, a book I recommend if you want a great introduction to Blender in more depth, I show a recipe for creating a character for the BGE. It's more a set of steps than a fully realized character. I leave that to you. I encourage you to use these steps to create your own character and post your result here. I used Blender 2.49b.

[JohnStrong]

Before watching your video I didn't know how to use blender as game engine, since I use it just for animation and static characters.
great !!!!!


Giovanni

[blenderWonder]

Good Evening Everybody,

Thanks Ira, for the tutorial, still i didn't watched , iam not able to open youtube may be some problem is going with youtube site or with my internet provider, eagerly waiting to watch the video,

edit : OK i had seen its nice , waiting for the next part
regards

vinu

[Infinitewave]

Hi all :~)

Getting ready to post some progress on the game I'd been working on for awhile and was just reading over/looking at new posts. One little comment...it is possible to apply subsurfaces to models/meshes in the BGE. The game I am about to post (hopefully, once I figure out how, hehe) includes examples, as all of the main land-type structures have subsurfaces applied. It remains an excellent idea, however, to limit the number of subdivisions as much as possible, and leaving the subsurf options to "levels: 1" and "render levels: 2" (of type Catmull-Clark) for faster gameplay.
To play the game as it is meant to be played (as an executable ".exe" file), simply select file>save as>save game as runtime, from within Blender ... and select a location (the desktop is always an easy find, lol). The game is nearly an entirely different game when played as a runtime. The music track is written and composed by one of my brothers. The lighting and many other features have yet to be improved.
I'm uploading the blend file so folks can have a look around. Feel free to have fun with it! (Presuming I figure out how to upload it ... on to that task!)

[irakrakow]

Sorry, the BGE doesn't support subsurfing. Unfortunately, you have to rely on the actual geometry to get details. However, there are tricks with texturing and normal maps that I'll discuss in future tutorials that can get around the problem.

[Infinitewave]

Hm...just wondering. It may be I'm not seeing what I think I'm seeing (and I'm not being sarcastic), but I most certainly used subsurf on meshes in my game and they certainly seem to have been applied and visible when I play it.
This is in Blender 2.49b. Perhaps in earlier versions (and I would easily imagine in 2.5x, as there's a good bit still not functioning completely there), the subsurf was not functional. I posted the ? at Blenderartists.org and at least one other person also seems to think it's working for them in the BGE. Idk...feel free to take a look at my game and tell me what ya think (particularly with regard to the terrain meshes). All of them are planes, and I have a tough time thinking that I could have gotten those curves with subdivision alone.
It may be that only some kind of smoothing was applied. I didn't get any kind of error, however. I really don't know. But I'm going to keep using it because it sure looks good, imo, lol.

[irakrakow]

Interesting...I was under the impression that subsurfing didn't work in the BGE. I'll do more research and report back. That's why I started this Forum...so I could learn