Web Projects Need Demo Models! Support Open Source! Pizza!

Hey Everyone -
There’s a lot of open source developers starting to build really creative applications using WebGL with various libraries ( such as Three.JS ). However, most of us are definitely coders, not artists… and we’re nothing short of completely useless when it comes to working with Blender. What’s stopping a lot of open source development from proceeding is the ease of access to resources to enable building quick demonstrations of technology out.

One of the biggest gaps that I’ve seen is a lack of simple, animated character models. While there are a ton of character models ( even rigged! ) available on blendswap.com, none of them have the basic animations required to quickly pull them into demo projects. I’d love to sponsor the animation of some of these models - but I’m not exactly flush with cash… I will, however, compensate you nicely with pizzas! Here’s what I’m looking for - let me know if I’m asking for the moon…

The Blender Open Movie Project has already released a nice set of models for their Tears of Steel production that are rigged and ready to go. They’re called “blockheads” - you can find the .blend file here:
http://mango.blender.org/rigging/blockheads-blend/
( Note - you should probably use the following file: http://mango.blender.org/rigging/blockheads-blend/attachment/blockheads_release2-blend/ )

There are quite a few models in there, but the basic necessity is to have one model animated for the following actions:

  1. Walk Forward
  2. Walk Backward
  3. Run Forward
  4. Run Backward
  5. Strafe Right
  6. Strafe Left
  7. Jump ( optionally including a “falling” animation )

I don’t know how easy it is to take one skeletal animation and copy it over to other models, I would guess it’s not as easy as copying and pasting - but duplicating them amongst all of the models would be fantastic.

Of course, the blockheads blender file is licensed as CC, and the work you produce would have to be as well. But I guarantee you it’d be a great portfolio project and would garner a lot of attention as the go-to source for low-poly character modeling.

I would be eternally grateful - and so would hundreds ( if not thousands ) of other open source developers.
Let me know what you think!

Bonus: If you’re in Denver, CO - let me know! I’d love to meet up with any of you and pick your brain about modeling standards and whatnot.

Double Bonus: If anyone else reading this would commit to donating a pizza or whatnot to the creation of these elements, just reply with “I’ll buy a Pizza”.

Fellow Denver dev here - I would buy a pizza!

I’m a frontend dev/writer/designer working on a game with a small team, and our lack of modeling knowledge is a huge roadblock right now. If we had SOMETHING to work with, to look at and build off of, it would be a HUGE deal.

I would up the ante and offer some work trade in exchange. Let us know what you guys need and I’m sure we could make a deal the benefits both parties.

  • Nick

I’m a little surprised that this hasn’t had any traction with animators / blender artists. Is it because I’m asking for the moon? Or are skeleton animators just that hard to find?

If I understand correctly you would like someone to animate all the models in the figureheads .blend file with the animations specified?
I would like to give it a try even though I’m not an animator. If I succeed I will post a blend file with animations, if I don’t (the more likley option) I will of course not.

Yeah - and not even for all of the models… even animating just one would be a HUGE help. If you do it be sure to post it here so some of us can buy you pizza gift cards or something. :slight_smile:

Okay I’m interested, I can model texture rig animate and write a bit python but not too great at that, I may have a little time to offer, in exchange for some coding possibly, I’m pretty sure I get what your looking for, but can you explain to me exactly what its for? As I’m very curious.

Although I probably won’t go use those blockhead rigs, as that’s really boring. I will, however do one better and make you a custom character, texture it, rig it, and do those animations for you. I always like the idea of finding a way to benefit both parties, I can’t make any guarantees, as every second of my time is going to my project and my team, but if we can work something out so I can gain something for my effort that I couldn’t accomplish myself, I would be very glad to offer my time.

Well - I can’t tell you everything it would be used for ( hopefully thousands of different demos and projects! ) - but I can tell you what I would be using it for. I’m trying to build interactive multi-user virtual worlds that are easily designed and can be scripted to be interactive. Think of SecondLife on steroids. :slight_smile:

Ultimately, what all of us developers really need is a basic model we can throw into any environment we’re building or working with that is skeleton animated so that we can easily skin it different if necessary. Building demos ( like this: http://threejs.org/examples/webgldeferred_animation.html ) up until this point have been limited to basic walking animations and a select few models that are available on the web. Not a whole lot to work with… :slight_smile:

Here’s my email [email protected]

Me doing some walk cycles on those blockheads models would be about the same as what you already have, so I think we can work something out and get something much more “fun to look at” out of this, I mean those blockhead model are hideous, if your interested.

If the characters skeletons are the same then it would be simple to copy the bvh file and transfer it over to any other model. Anyways I can model, texture, rig… I’ll help, I like pizza! PM me!