With engines like the one from mohaa, and hl2 coming up etc... Those character models all have facial animations, lipsync etc etc...

I am able to model low poly characters for f.e. hl or quake games, but how the f*** does all that high poly facial stuff work?! It scares the hell out of me, is there a place I can read about this(learn this)?

I would also like to know how that kind of animation system works.

Thnx in advance,

Well have a look in this thread you may find some anwsers..:)

http://www.dayofdefeat.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14642

Yeah that's essentially how it works, only instead of vertices being assigned to just one bone, you can assign them to several with varying levels of attachment. So for example a set of vertices might be attached to a bone at 90% and another at 10%. So when the first moves the vertices move with it really strong, and if the other moves, they move just a little. Gives you a more organic stretchy feeling. As for the actual facial animations, that sort of thing is going to be coded into the engine, so you type the words and the model speaks them automatically.

well i wish the halh life team you putt out tuts on how to model for half life 2. cuase what the hell is a bump map.(i know its no the level maps for doom). and is it going to me hard to skin for half life 2 and **** like that.

I had a link to a site that listed and explained every single type of modeling map, but I think it was in my Misc Favorite folder and I lost that when I formatted. I'll look for it.

http://www.bigpanda.com/trinity/article1.html

A bump map is basically a second texture that allows you to make a false sense of depth to a surface. Like if I have a flat surface with a texture of some panels on it, it'll look like just that: a flat surface with a texture of panels. But if I add a bump map, it tricks the lighting and rendering into making it look like I modelled each individual panel, crease, bolt, screw, and dent on it, giving it more depth. The easiest way to make a bump map is to take a grayscale version of the texture and use that as the bump map. But the engine you're using has to support it, Half-Life 1 doesn't.

When skinning the diffuse texture of a model that will have a bumpmap, you have to remember not to skin the lightning on the diffuse map, because the bump map will do that for you. Otherwise the lightning on the model will be inconsistent.