You want to know the real reason the community is dying? As someone who has fallen to being a constant observer of what goes on in the forums. I think I can come out with a few reasons.
It's not just that people make things some consider half-assed. It's not just people being download whores. It's not people making packs of recolors or [censored] like that. It's not just the fact that many people who started have gone on to other projects. It's not even people using other people's things to make things of their own, and it's certainly not because nobody is interested anymore.
Things are still being made, not all of them are great or as awesome as some things were when this community was at it's peak. The point is they are still being made, and people still are doing modded Brawl, if downloads being made on anything is any indication at all.
It's because this community is not as friendly as we like to make yourselves think, it's also because so many of our members never interact with other, more active members, never make posts, make themselves known beyond the vault, never allow the community to critique, foster and nurture their ability to create. It's also because too many out there think they could never do what we can do now, and compounding on that is that the atmosphere of the community has become one of jaded cynicism, no matter how much we blind ourselves to that truth.
The past hostilities between a certain project and the community poisoning things further not withstanding, this community is choking itself to death by the way many people operate and think around here. We often look down on people who do things we think are dumb, or because we think they didn't put enough effort into something, or because we hold newbies to this stuff to unreasonable higher standards than we did to ourselves and others when this community was just starting out a few years ago.
Nobody is going to be like myself, Pik, M2000, Beyond, SDo0m, TurboChaos, among many others in a day, a week, or maybe even a month. Getting better takes time, patience and commitment, but nobody is going to want to make any of those three things in a community where people are told to read tutorials or offers, more often than not, little meaningful help to other members. When people ask for help, they want to interact with someone who is knowledgable in what they are asking about, not a referral to some tutorial. Yeah, it means more questions for more experienced people, but it's also one of the reasons why so many never complete a mod of their own. Nobody does or says anything to galvanize the will of people wanting to get into the modding game.
Also as a whole, we've stopped fostering actual, productive creativity. As awesome as it is that we have Model Importing, look what it's mostly reduced us to: importing models from other games. The only one left who was doing vertexing mods, was a guy named Tyshy, and his stuff is of quality we used to be amazed by back when Vertexing Mods were reaching the middle of their climb to popularity. It's not even considered great by our standards now, but he's still making creative things regardless of what we think of what he creates or has created as whole.
Then there's the fact there are so few people who are proficient at Texturing and creating UV Maps for mods. It's another one of the reasons why so many new mods are little more than recolors, nothing more. Nobody has the knowledge. Nobody is taking things further. I may not be one to talk in this regard, having been inactive for so long, but that's far aside the point I'm making here.
Nobody is being engaging with other people. We're basically slapping words on a board without trying to have any meaningful interactions with our words and it's stifling. It's killing our community.
That needs to change. Badly, if there is to be any hope of this community being any more than a dying husk of what it used to be.
If it takes yuo one hour to download 26MB your priority should be kicking your provider in the ass, not pestering me for one file that has been available since, what, november 2014?
About Mewtwo and Roy, you're still pestering the wrong person. I don't have PM's gct source and nobody outside of the backdoor team does. The clone engine is their doing and they're holding on to it. I'm angry as much as you about it but we can't do much if they're not going to share it.
To be frank, it'd just be easier to give him the file than give him the runaround. Your choice though.
You could also maybe direct him on what he needs to do in regard to Googling stuff.
Found some new textures for Krystal, the original texture didn't have the bikini, so I had to add it to the new styled textures.
I don't know how he made these textures with that style, I need to do the same to the bikini textures, but if I can get them right, they would look so much better. His textures are free to use, so no worries there
I want to do another rig of her, I'm never quite satisfied with how I've been rigging her. Heh.
Edit: Here are the textures again, this time with a better bikini top
To be perfectly honest, I think the original bikini top texture was better. Glad to see you're attempting texture edits though.
That's exactly what I mean by manual texture work, the unfortunate reality is that Brawl doesn't support bump maps so you have to compensate for that in the textures like Brawl did. That's also why the Smash 3DS models look like they have more depth than these, because the textures are actually done without things like that in mind.
I am well aware of the work that will needed to be done to compensate, having redone entire textures. Without naming names or works, there are a lot of imports that suffer from the same thing, not just Smash Wii U ones.
I realize this, and from what I know that's what most of these are doing, yet it still doesn't have the depth the Smash U models have. I realize the difference is between normals and not normals, but I'm pretty sure normals aren't meant to be used like that...
A good base, yes, but just overlaying the normals and calling it a day seems too simple to me. At least from what I've been seeing.
You're right, it's very overly simple, but that's the beauty of it. Beyond just overlaying or multiplying the desaturated normals and bumps, you can further edit the duplicated and edited layers to maximize the effect they have on the textures.
Only way to fix the issues otherwise aside applying new shaders for all the models would be having to somehow edit the lighting engine and game itself to accept bumps.
Honestly, the biggest difference between Smash 4 and Brawl graphically is that all of the odels have spec maps, bump maps, and shaders that allow shadows to be cast upon themselves. Hell that was the biggest graphical improvement between Wii and WiiU.
^^^^^^
Majora, you of all people should know I'm no stranger to those facts.
Another solution could be applying brand new shaders to the models.
Most of it I'd say is because Brawl doesn't have amazing lighting and because of the lack of normals and such. I think the textures would need a lot of manual work to look decent in Brawl, but I'm not sure a lot of people want to do that.
A lot of that work can be done by utilizing the normal / bump maps and if you wanted to: the spec maps.
Put the normal map over the model, desaturate it, use multiple layers with different darkening blend modes and edit as needed and you'll be done, for the most part. The spec maps also provide another viable shading solution, for those that have them.
I dunno, these Smash 4 models don't really run well with the lighting engine. They look bleached or something without all their maps correctly applied.
Smash 4 stages fit more because they have more traditional texture technique, same with Smash 4 assist trophies.
I think that could be easily solved by making the textures darker overall. Not the best solution but it could be workable until the lighting issue is figured out.
-or maybe the lighting issue has to do with their shaders?
A note to the guys doing the Smash 4 imports: when putting the Normal Maps over the Texture Maps and using PS's blend modes to add in more detail, I recommend doing some of the following.
- Using multiple layers with different blending modes (I.E. one layer of Linear Burn, with one layer of Multiply on top, followed by another layer of Overlay on top of that) after using Ctrl+Shift+U / Cmd+Shift+U. Then adjusting opacity for each layer. This will allow you to make the details even more notable and in different ways.
- Consider using an inverted gray-scaled normal map to do some highlights too if possible.
For other models like Peach, for example, consider the following?
- Find a way to create a satin specular effect like that seen in Smash 4 on Peach's dress? (It's definitely possible).
Devil's rig is done. Still no real textures though.
Textures for Yellow Devil will be difficult to come by, considering it's body has no actual detail.
I think it would be cool for Yellow Devil to have an animated texture and specular so it constantly changes how it looks in light. My theory is Yellow Devil is made of some kind of nanomachines with a master unit controlling them.
Either that or it's some kind of goop that's manipulated in some way, so a cool way to spice him up for Brawl would be to duplicate his body (minus the eye) and then shrink it a little and turn the original polys into a sort of semi-transparent membrane with a gel-like specular or something.
@Satoshikura: It can work well with skin textures, you'll just need to use a different blending mode for the skin, and Ctrl+Shift+U to grayscale the normal map, then cut out the portions not pertaining to the skin.
Though I have to admit I'm surprised how pervasive the normal maps are in this game..
Not enough Follow Through/Overlapping Action. When I tried doing the same thing you're animating, I feel like the sword he's swinging is too light. In this case, the torso should be the driving force to perform the swing, which is then followed by the shoulders, which is followed by the arms, followed by the hands, all the way back down to the sword. Much like how a whip would move when you take a swing at it.
Do also note that gravity eventually takes over at some point. So when he swings it down, depending on how heavy the sword is, it should drop faster than his arms can keep up.
A good way to signify this would be to have one hand leave the sword's hilt and have him hanging on to it with one hand while one arm stops and the other one keeps going due to the sword's immense weight.
I looked at the OoT Boss fight and to me the tuck in doesn't seem like a focal point in the animation to me.
With that being said, I could probably move the tuck in 5 frames earlier so there's more build up.
I was thinking of also having the legs move forward a bit before he goes into the float pose... although that might seem sloppy for someone like Ganondorf.
I think I posted an Up air animation for ganondorf. I'd love some critique on that, I think it came out really sloppy, but... idk ;_;
Nvm, I didn't put up the updated version. I'll put that up when I get home.
Well, being the holder of the Triforce of Power, making Ganondorf look powerful in every movement he does is important.
While the movement is nice, it doesn't feel very powerful. There's not enough snap to it, and I feel it transitions too quickly from the curling pose to him throwing his arms out.
He needs to pause for about 5-6 frames, squeeze his knees in toward his chest more and bring his arms in tighter, and his head tucked in for about 5-6 more, then thrust his legs out and throw his arms out in one, quick, snappy motion. That pause I mentioned followed by the further squeezing in of his limbs will give it a feeling of tension, before he thrusts his legs out in a matter of 4-5 frames will make it feel extremely powerful, and making him hold the pose afterward with his hands and arms trembling will really sell how powerful he and the movement is.
-and with the second one, again, Ganondorf needs pauses and quick, snappy movements in his animations, cause it really gives a supper powerful feeling to it.
His taunt where he tucks his limbs in, spins around, then thrusts them out ad laughs is a perfect example of what I mean. Ganondorfs animations are all about incredible build-ups of tension followed by a powerful, quick release
At least with Humanoid characters that I've rigged, ShoulderN has mostly been where the clavicle and first, second, and third rib bones (and maybe a bit of the shoulder blade) are located.
Below is an image of the human skeleton for reference.
NOTE: I'm not the best rigger, but it's worked for me lol.
The ShoulderN shouldn't affect the upper torso much with the exception of the entirety of the arm and the shoulder, unless the character is like Dante or something and wearing a long coat.
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