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Author Topic: [WIP] Mass Looters  (Read 8074 times)

Offline tkzv

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[WIP] Mass Looters
« on: November 30, 2018, 02:40:30 am »
A couple months ago I saw a suggestion of a Mass Effect crossover mod. It got me thinking. What if some unscrupulous corporation from Citadel space came to the Solar system in the late 20th century looking for Prothean ruins? What if they fly all over Earth looking for more ruins? What if Quarians find about the place too? What if the corporation hired Blood Pack for protection, but can't fully control them? What if they hire agents on Earth to cover everything up, but several payments don't arrive on time? The cover is blown and X-COM is created!

The only things working so far are intro (without sound) and unlimited ammo in alien guns. And unbalanced missions against Vorcha in "New Battle" mode.

The mod is attached, if anybody is interested. I'm posting everything to GitHub too: https://github.com/tkzv/looters/

I'm planning a line of research that would keep Earth guns usable until the end. There'll be medigel. There'll be collapsible alien weapons. There'll be biotics, but I don't know what to do with it besides Barrier and Shockwave. There'll be timed missions to catch infiltrators. There'll be multistage missions. There may be plot advancement coupons. I'm thinking of including base destruction mechanics. There'll be choices. There'll be unreliable narration. Any other suggestions?

I've been experimenting with 3D models I found online and created some sprites. This is far from the final look. I'm thinking of making them wider, and I will definitely retouch them pixel by pixel. What is your opinion?

While working, I got an idea that Salarians were named after the place where they crash landed (Salarievo Landfill was real in 1998). Any other suggestions?
« Last Edit: November 30, 2018, 09:37:34 am by tkzv »

Offline tkzv

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Re: Mass Looters
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2018, 02:43:44 am »
The sprites. I'll separate limbs when I'm satisfied with colours and proportions.

How wider should they be? What should I do to make them more distinguishable?

Offline efrenespartano

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Re: Mass Looters
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2018, 04:00:08 am »
Wow! So many high quality sprites! How do you draw them?


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Offline tkzv

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Re: Mass Looters
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2018, 08:54:15 am »
Wow! So many high quality sprites! How do you draw them?
Found 3D models online (ripped from the game, as far as I know). Posed and rendered them in Blender (9 frames of walking, 8 cameras). This is why they look blurry.

Two more sets of battlescape sprites.
Note: the gray contour is a downscaling artifact introduced by this site. If you look at the full-sized sheets, there's no contour.


And some animations.
« Last Edit: December 01, 2018, 12:19:49 pm by tkzv »

Offline tkzv

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Re: [WIP] Mass Looters
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2018, 12:24:03 pm »
More animations:

Offline Wolfstarr

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Re: Mass Looters
« Reply #5 on: December 02, 2018, 12:32:33 am »
Found 3D models online (ripped from the game, as far as I know). Posed and rendered them in Blender (9 frames of walking, 8 cameras). This is why they look blurry.

Two more sets of battlescape sprites.
Note: the gray contour is a downscaling artifact introduced by this site. If you look at the full-sized sheets, there's no contour.


And some animations.

Nice work :)

What script did you use to do this?

Offline tkzv

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Re: Mass Looters
« Reply #6 on: December 02, 2018, 06:20:28 am »
Nice work :)
Thanks.

What script did you use to do this?
What script do you mean?

I import, resize and pose the models manually. I'll post the *.blend files with cameras and lights.
UPDATE: 9 frames in total, keyframes for skeleton rotations in 0, 4 and 8.
Then I generate animation as 72 frames in truecolour PNG with transparent background.
UPDATE: If it looks too bleak, I modify the main texture in Gimp. Usually just increase colour saturation or apply levels.
Then I load frame 0004-3.png to Gimp and make 3 death frames d1.png, d2.png, d3.png and a corpse corpse.png. Just draw the blood, then cut and paste. And maybe rotate the pasted layer.
Then I merge the frames to a single sheet with ImageMagick montage:
Code: [Select]
montage -geometry '32x40+0+0' -tile '16x5' -background none 0004-* `for cam in {0..7} ; do echo 000{{0..3},{5..8}}-$cam.png; done` d* result-tc.pngThen I convert result-tc.png to 256-colour in Gimp. UPDATE: This may involve another saturation increase.

To create spinning and walking animation from 72 frames I also use montage and a separate program gifsicle:
Code: [Select]
for camera in {0..7}; do montage -geometry '32x40+0+0' -tile '9x1' -background '#00ff00' 000*-$camera.png spinning-frame-$camera.gif; done ; gifsicle -d 50 spinning-frame-*.gif --loopcount=forever > spinning.gif
for frame in {0..8}; do montage -geometry '32x40+0+0' -tile '8x1' -background '#00ff00' 000$frame-*.png walking-frame-$frame.gif; done ; gifsicle -d 15 walking-frame-{0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1}.gif --loopcount=forever  > walking.gif
Those are Linux bash scripts. I'm not sure if they'd work in Windows PowerShell. If they don't, you can set numbers manually instead of cycles and wildcards:
Spoiler:
Sheet:
Code: [Select]
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "16x5" -background none 0004-0.png 0004-1.png 0004-2.png 0004-3.png 0004-4.png 0004-5.png 0004-6.png 0004-7.png 0000-0.png 0000-1.png 0000-2.png 0000-3.png 0000-4.png 0000-5.png 0000-6.png 0000-7.png 0001-0.png 0001-1.png 0001-2.png 0001-3.png 0001-4.png 0001-5.png 0001-6.png 0001-7.png 0002-0.png 0002-1.png 0002-2.png 0002-3.png 0002-4.png 0002-5.png 0002-6.png 0002-7.png 0003-0.png 0003-1.png 0003-2.png 0003-3.png 0003-4.png 0003-5.png 0003-6.png 0003-7.png 0005-0.png 0005-1.png 0005-2.png 0005-3.png 0005-4.png 0005-5.png 0005-6.png 0005-7.png 0006-0.png 0006-1.png 0006-2.png 0006-3.png 0006-4.png 0006-5.png 0006-6.png 0006-7.png 0007-0.png 0007-1.png 0007-2.png 0007-3.png 0007-4.png 0007-5.png 0007-6.png 0007-7.png 0008-0.png 0008-1.png 0008-2.png 0008-3.png 0008-4.png 0008-5.png 0008-6.png 0008-7.png d1.png d2.png d3.png result-tc.png

Spinning:
Code: [Select]
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "9x1" -background "#00ff00" 0000-0.png 0001-0.png 0002-0.png 0003-0.png 0004-0.png 0005-0.png 0006-0.png 0007-0.png 0008-0.png spinning-frame-0.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "9x1" -background "#00ff00" 0000-1.png 0001-1.png 0002-1.png 0003-1.png 0004-1.png 0005-1.png 0006-1.png 0007-1.png 0008-1.png spinning-frame-1.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "9x1" -background "#00ff00" 0000-2.png 0001-2.png 0002-2.png 0003-2.png 0004-2.png 0005-2.png 0006-2.png 0007-2.png 0008-2.png spinning-frame-2.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "9x1" -background "#00ff00" 0000-3.png 0001-3.png 0002-3.png 0003-3.png 0004-3.png 0005-3.png 0006-3.png 0007-3.png 0008-3.png spinning-frame-3.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "9x1" -background "#00ff00" 0000-4.png 0001-4.png 0002-4.png 0003-4.png 0004-4.png 0005-4.png 0006-4.png 0007-4.png 0008-4.png spinning-frame-4.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "9x1" -background "#00ff00" 0000-5.png 0001-5.png 0002-5.png 0003-5.png 0004-5.png 0005-5.png 0006-5.png 0007-5.png 0008-5.png spinning-frame-5.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "9x1" -background "#00ff00" 0000-6.png 0001-6.png 0002-6.png 0003-6.png 0004-6.png 0005-6.png 0006-6.png 0007-6.png 0008-6.png spinning-frame-6.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "9x1" -background "#00ff00" 0000-7.png 0001-7.png 0002-7.png 0003-7.png 0004-7.png 0005-7.png 0006-7.png 0007-7.png 0008-7.png spinning-frame-7.gif
gifsicle -d 50 spinning-frame-0.gif spinning-frame-1.gif spinning-frame-2.gif spinning-frame-3.gif spinning-frame-4.gif spinning-frame-5.gif spinning-frame-6.gif spinning-frame-7.gif --loopcount=forever > spinning.gif
(Correction: removed wrong line breaks.)

Walking:
Code: [Select]
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "8x1" -background "#00ff00" 0000-0.png 0000-1.png 0000-2.png 0000-3.png 0000-4.png 0000-5.png 0000-6.png 0000-7.png walking-frame-0.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "8x1" -background "#00ff00" 0001-0.png 0001-1.png 0001-2.png 0001-3.png 0001-4.png 0001-5.png 0001-6.png 0001-7.png walking-frame-1.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "8x1" -background "#00ff00" 0002-0.png 0002-1.png 0002-2.png 0002-3.png 0002-4.png 0002-5.png 0002-6.png 0002-7.png walking-frame-2.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "8x1" -background "#00ff00" 0003-0.png 0003-1.png 0003-2.png 0003-3.png 0003-4.png 0003-5.png 0003-6.png 0003-7.png walking-frame-3.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "8x1" -background "#00ff00" 0004-0.png 0004-1.png 0004-2.png 0004-3.png 0004-4.png 0004-5.png 0004-6.png 0004-7.png walking-frame-4.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "8x1" -background "#00ff00" 0005-0.png 0005-1.png 0005-2.png 0005-3.png 0005-4.png 0005-5.png 0005-6.png 0005-7.png walking-frame-5.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "8x1" -background "#00ff00" 0006-0.png 0006-1.png 0006-2.png 0006-3.png 0006-4.png 0006-5.png 0006-6.png 0006-7.png walking-frame-6.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "8x1" -background "#00ff00" 0007-0.png 0007-1.png 0007-2.png 0007-3.png 0007-4.png 0007-5.png 0007-6.png 0007-7.png walking-frame-7.gif
montage -geometry "32x40+0+0" -tile "8x1" -background "#00ff00" 0008-0.png 0008-1.png 0008-2.png 0008-3.png 0008-4.png 0008-5.png 0008-6.png 0008-7.png walking-frame-8.gif
gifsicle -d 15 walking-frame-0.gif walking-frame-1.gif walking-frame-2.gif walking-frame-3.gif walking-frame-4.gif walking-frame-5.gif walking-frame-6.gif walking-frame-7.gif walking-frame-8.gif walking-frame-7.gif walking-frame-6.gif walking-frame-5.gif walking-frame-4.gif walking-frame-3.gif walking-frame-2.gif walking-frame-1.gif --loopcount=forever  > walking.gif

I'm still trying to figure out proper placement of cameras. "oxc-studio" assumes model height 1 and places cameras very close. This may result in some perspective distorsions like an abnormally thick arm in the salarian-a pictures. "oxc-studio2" assumes model height 1.8 and places cameras very far. I only tried it with Vorcha so far. — UPDATE: The new cameras are still aimed incorrectly. I'll fix them and post a new archive.
UPDATE: Disabled perspective. Looks a bit better. The Blender Python script for setting uniform orthogonal scaling:
Code: [Select]
for c in bpy.data.cameras:
  c.type = 'ORTHO'
  c.ortho_scale = 1.25
Orthogonal cameras give the same size regardless of the distance.
Both files are large, because they contain some leftover garbage from previous models. I'm still learning Blender and haven't figured out how to remove it :( — EDIT: Leftovers were visible in Outliner in "Blender File" and "Orphaned Data" — mainly images, textures, materials, brushes.

P.S. The new renders use a model widened 1.5 times to give it proportions similar to the original X-COM characters.



Tried rendering images for inventory and Ufopaedia. Models with 1.5-2 times width seem to have proportions similar to the original game.
« Last Edit: December 14, 2018, 12:06:59 pm by tkzv »

Offline tkzv

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Re: [WIP] Mass Looters
« Reply #7 on: December 04, 2018, 09:05:48 am »
More inventory and Ufopaedia pictures.

krogan-u is a result of an accident. I imported several models to the same file and the textures got mixed up. This is the same mesh as krogan-a, but with the main texture of vorcha.png. I liked the result and decided to keep it :) It's a Krogan that dresses like Vorcha :)
« Last Edit: December 04, 2018, 12:49:28 pm by tkzv »

Offline efrenespartano

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Re: [WIP] Mass Looters
« Reply #8 on: December 04, 2018, 09:44:57 am »
I like the Krogan sprites!


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Offline tkzv

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Re: [WIP] Mass Looters
« Reply #9 on: December 04, 2018, 10:53:50 am »
I like the Krogan sprites!
Which set? A or U?

I'm going to re-render all the above sprites with models 1.5-2 times wider. Like the second Vorcha set, but at a different angle. Otherwise, they'd be too thin compared to X-COM operatives.
« Last Edit: December 04, 2018, 12:47:25 pm by tkzv »

Offline efrenespartano

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Re: [WIP] Mass Looters
« Reply #10 on: December 04, 2018, 04:53:43 pm »
Which set? A or U?

I'm going to re-render all the above sprites with models 1.5-2 times wider. Like the second Vorcha set, but at a different angle. Otherwise, they'd be too thin compared to X-COM operatives.

Both of them, but I have to admit that the B is better.


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Offline tkzv

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Re: [WIP] Mass Looters
« Reply #11 on: December 04, 2018, 11:41:03 pm »
Next attempt with no perspective and wide model: Turian in casual clothes. I tried increasing colour saturation.





Turian and Batarian mercenaries.







Female Turians.





« Last Edit: December 08, 2018, 01:08:17 am by tkzv »

Offline tkzv

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Re: [WIP] Mass Looters
« Reply #12 on: December 08, 2018, 09:43:18 pm »
Quarians:







Wider Krogans:



« Last Edit: December 10, 2018, 08:52:11 am by tkzv »

Offline efrenespartano

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Re: [WIP] Mass Looters
« Reply #13 on: December 11, 2018, 12:36:08 am »
A lot of new sprites! Great!

Offline tkzv

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Re: [WIP] Mass Looters
« Reply #14 on: December 21, 2018, 02:47:56 am »
Unarmoured Batarian:



I experimented with rendering the falling corpse rather than doing everything in Gimp. The animations of falling corpse with and without blood are attached.

The biggest problems were to make the wound visible on render, then to make it move together with the body (rather than fly away) :)

Guess, the blood isn't red enough after saturation increase in Gimp. I'll have to fix that.

New sheet and corpse for unarmoured Asari:



New wider models:
Asari in heavy armour:


Salarians, armoured and not:





Vorcha, version 3, this time properly aligned with the Battlescape grid:



Varren, 1.6 times taller, 2 times wider:




There's also an animation of a walking varren. See the attachment below.

Varren is final, unless I decide to recolour it or make animation more realistic. As for the rest, I'll have to separate arms/head/torso/legs. And improve corpse sprites. Someday. I'm also going to add Drell and maybe Batarian women. But for now I'll say that Batarian sexual dimorphism is negligible, and Drell will be unlocked much later.

Still haven't decided how to draw autopsies. Later.

I'm done with 3D rendering for now, but if you have an interesting model that you'd like to use in your mod, feel free to ask. The full set — animation for drawingRoutine: 4, corpse, inventory and Ufopaedia pictures — take me 1-2 hours. I may help.



Next step — make missions to use all those sprites.
« Last Edit: December 24, 2018, 08:59:31 am by tkzv »