!!UPDATE!!
here's what i've got so far. the third skin is only a fast color change to the second one..
tail is very wip.. i'll do something with alphamaps there.

if you need a certain cow, post a skinrequest here (include pic)

ok, the pictures:

me likes them ;)

and the ragdoll testlevel...
was removed.

it is, as written below, not very good at the moment... i'm still not sure if it is worth all the work...


old post below this line
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another wip of the cow.

it's the skin for the alive model. very wip, especially on the head! i just thought i have to post another image to keep your hopes up.

progress: ragdoll is basically working, but i really don't like it... it's just to messy with the polygons around the legs and stuff. but still, i'll release it along with other static props of the cow. propbably there will be a small testlevel the next days, so you can try out the ragdollcow. after your feedback, i can decide where to go with it.


i'm right now working on another bone structure for posing the dead cows (yeah, the ragdoll one hasn't got enough bones to get everything the way i want it. (no bones for the udder, the wattle, the tail and the ears)

so, stay tuned!


old post below this line
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this is the first version of the cow.
geometry is done (i think).
polycount is around 2200. maybe i should add more detail to the head, especially to the eyes. anything else?

just for the sake of doing it and for the fun of nading it, i'll make a ragdoll version (very simple bone structure)

there will also be a version as a prop_static, so it can be used as tactical cover.
(which a ragdoll can't, since they don't get synchronized in mp games and everyone sees it differently)

i thought about making 5 skins. 2 for the ragdoll one, which can still be alive and 3 for the static one, which is probably dead since a few weeks.
maybe i'll do a second pose for the static one. or even a third pose ;) depends on how much work it is to pose the cow.

ok, here's the pic:



sidenote:
you can see a nicely posed death state on the bottom right ;) shockfreezed!

"depends on how much work it is to pose the cow" rofl

i cant wait to see a flying cow :D

Now thats awsome. :cool:

can you do some goats next and maybe some chickens/roosters??? That would be freakin awesome!!


No I'm no sicko, but there is no 'life' in DoD, I want to see some realism when tramping thru maps like flash... country-ish settings I mean.


Maybe even a dog/cat that runs away when the first wave of soldiers passes thru.... The source engine can do wonders for us!!!


--Ozz

Cheat! Thats one of the famous cow example models that 3D apps always use, almost as famous as the teapot! :eek:

Thank you for answering the call :D

Perhaps do a static death model and a living model? Dead cows make good cover.

BESSIE!

Emmen la vache!

Now that's a model

Hehe, gonna be funny to see MGs deployed on cows :p

Originally posted by Trp. Jed
Cheat! Thats one of the famous cow example models that 3D apps always use, almost as famous as the teapot! :eek:

yes, i took an existing model (that licence free cow) as reference, but it was way to highpoly and a little out of proportion, so i made an optimized version. that reference model also has no uvw or bones, so there's still a lot to do.

i don't know what is more important now. making fast some useable mapmodels (by using licence free, premade stuff if available) or doing it the honorably way of creating everything from scratch.

it's like a programmer who writes every library by himself.. or a graphic designer who creates his own font and takes his own photos. both take way to much time and are probably worse than existing ones.


----------------------------------------------
just to clear out confusion:
the cars on my map chicago are converted from mafia. i read in the rules that this is not allowed since they're copyrighted. ok, im fine with that. i won't release them. i also never took credits for them.

the nebelwerfer is made by me from scratch. i used foto textures for the skins.

the dead bodies use the geometry of the dod:s player model. i posed them and made a skin for them.

the cow's geometry is an optimized version of that "clipart" model.
and i'll use fotos for its texture.

Nice looking cow :)

Now if you're going to be making a dead version thats a week or so old it'll need to be bloated, cause they do that after a few days in the sun :)

Originally posted by carter6156
i cant wait to see a flying cow :D


Fuzzdad will be all over that one!

LOL Don't worry pedroleum, if its a public domain model I have no grounds to complain. I guess the purist in me *prefers* original models but what the hey.

I know you mentioned doing a couple of versions of the cow, but out here in cow country, the black and white cows do not have any horns. I don't know how hard it would be to make one with horns, and one without horns, but just a suggestion. Looking foward to the model either way, and it looks great. Nice job man.

this ragdoll stuff drives me crazy !!
i think i got it all right.. but the cow's geometry is totaly messed up ingame. in hammer, everything looks nice..
something is still wrong.

btw. about progress: i had some other projects going on, so there was not that much time left to model.
but the cow is now unwrapped, temporarly skinned (it has fur, udder, eyes mouth and stuff, but the texture template isnt done yet) and the bone structure is set up/rigged. collision mesh is done aswell...
now i only have to get it to work in dod:s.

if anyone here has a lot of experience with ragdolls, 3dsmax and cannonfodder's exporter, please send me a pm!

You will forever be my hero when this is launched :)

update!
read first post...

Wouldn't it be more common to see cows with all brown or tan fur?

or we could have both ^_^...the cows in CoD2 were awesome

you defintely will have more than 2 skins!
promise!

Woot for chocolate milk?
Just a question..... Will the cow shoot giblets when shot at??

Just a suggestion, the cow I think needs to be dirtier.

Cows arn't that dirty, just the tail is usually covered in their... biproduct.

*is surrounded by dairy and chicken farmers*

That is looking great man :D can't wait to have some fun with this.

update!
read first post or go away!! :)

wow, really nice textures! :)
good work!

Is it a cow, a bull, or a transvestite?

Originally posted by 2ltben
Is it a cow, a bull, or a transvestite?

if you would write, what exactly is messed up with the cow's sexuality, i could probably do something against it...

maybe he post his stupid comment because of the horns,
but ie. look at this pic: magretwilsenack.piranho.de/Bildergalerie/Kuh.jpg

Well, cows do have both horns and udders, but it's typical for farmers to remove them(the horns, not the udders). Not sure about how it was in the 1940s, though.

Originally posted by pedroleum
[B]!!UPDATE!!
here's what i've got so far. the third skin is only a fast color change to the second one..
tail is very wip.. i'll do something with alphamaps there.

if you need a certain cow, post a skinrequest here (include pic)

ok, the pictures:

me likes them ;)

They are looking nice nice nice, can't wait until the release!

Originally posted by 2ltben
Well, cows do have both horns and udders, but it's typical for farmers to remove them(the horns, not the udders). Not sure about how it was in the 1940s, though.

i did some research and it pretty much depends on the country/area, where the cows/farmers live. also, some cow races don't "grow" horns. some do.
some farmers cut them, some don't.
some even cut them without anesthetising them first....

i have no statistics, but i guess there are more hornless cows than horned one. (not to mention the horny ones :D)

so i might do a hornless version to...

who wants some left over polygons?

Looks fantastic. A great idea, there is an overall lack of fauna in maps :)

Freaking amazing pedro !!!!!!

I'm hoping you'll let me use this beauty in an upcoming map i'm working on.

:)

Impressive looking beasts, I cannot wait to see them ingame.

Is this ever going to get released?

Originally posted by Dark Nation
Is this ever going to get released?


jep, i'm almost done!
i'll release the dead ones first. (2 models with horns, 2 without horns)
i got 3 skins atm, but they're for the alive-version of the cow, so i'll do 3 more skins (dead ones).

i was planning on doing at least 3 dead cows, but as i feared, its very complicated to pose the cows, since cows have a lot of hanging flesh, which is a hard task to do with bones.
i now pose the cow the way i want it, then i delete the bones and start to edit the posed mesh vertex by vertex.


as previously written, i canceled the ragdolled cow, since there are far to many problems with ragdoll-props atm.
(not synced in multiplayer, terrible collisiondetection, fps killers)
(link to testlevel with ragdoll-cow is somewhere in main post)

i'm currently working on a static cow with animations. there will be a long idle anim and a "die and fall over" anim.

so mappers should be able to place alive cows which can be shot very soon.

Hurrah, I'd be happy with a dead cow at this point, no death animations needed. Now we need a sprite with a bunch of flies to place overtop of it.

dods needs a new team. cows

can you post a picture of you nailing them with an mg?

released in this (http://www.dayofdefeat.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=60510) thread!

Originally posted by Lt. Stephenson
can you post a picture of you nailing them with an mg?


why would i do such a nasty thing? :P

oh, no reason....:D

So how is the alive cow going? I have a place in my map reserved for 2 animated cows that are ready to be blown up.:)

Originally posted by Blue[)evil
So how is the alive cow going? I have a place in my map reserved for 2 animated cows that are ready to be blown up.:)


not good :( my stupid computer crashed an i'm still trying to get it to work ... backups there ;)

Ped, just out of curiosity what exactly was the problem with the ragdoll version?

Originally posted by Trp. Jed
Ped, just out of curiosity what exactly was the problem with the ragdoll version?


well, unfortunately, as you can see in the testlevel(main post), there are several issues.

first: i would need to many bones to get the "hanging flesh parts" like the udders and the wattle right.
also i wasn't able to get a ragdoll cow to work whose mesh couldn't totally get mess up with an mg42.

second: collision is really bad on ragdolls. (the collision on players stops as soon as they die / turn into ragdolls)
if you leave collision on, you'll notice some very weird behaviours. also i got stuck a lot while crouching around the ragdoll-cow.
and you cannot just turn of collision at all, because it would look very funny if you could walk through the cow, prone or hide in it.

third: the ragdoll cow's pretty hard on the performance...

and fourth: they are not synchronised through the server in mulitplayer. therefore everyone sees something different and therefore they cannot be used as cover.

so the only place a ragdoll cow could be useful is outside the player area, where noone can collide with it.
but for that kind of gimmick i think its far to much work.


tbh, i havent tried the ragdoll level since the last update (sticky bug). i would do that right now, but my windows is still installing...

Originally posted by pedroleum
first: i would need to many bones to get the "hanging flesh parts" like the udders and the wattle right.
also i wasn't able to get a ragdoll cow to work whose mesh couldn't totally get mess up with an mg42.

Sounds like you went overboard with the skeleton really. To be honest I don't think for a simple prop_physics cow you need to worry about *every* part. I would say bone for neck, one in the spine and one for each leg. That would keep it simple and give a reasonable ammount of movement.


second: collision is really bad on ragdolls. (the collision on players stops as soon as they die / turn into ragdolls)
if you leave collision on, you'll notice some very weird behaviours. also i got stuck a lot while crouching around the ragdoll-cow.
and you cannot just turn of collision at all, because it would look very funny if you could walk through the cow, prone or hide in it.

In that situation I wouldn't use a ragdol model anyway, a fixed static cow is better.


third: the ragdoll cow's pretty hard on the performance...

I'd need a Dev to confirm, but I think thats mostly down to the number of bones in the model and because every cycle it needs to calc the physics for it. Simplify the model, you reduce the load.

Don't forget as well that you can use LOD in the skeleton - you can effectively take bones out and simplify the skeleton when the model is a long way from the player.

and fourth: they are not synchronised through the server in mulitplayer. therefore everyone sees something different and therefore they cannot be used as cover.

That's a know, but again I don't think a mapper *should* use a ragdol cow for that purpose.

so the only place a ragdoll cow could be useful is outside the player area, where noone can collide with it.
but for that kind of gimmick i think its far to much work.

Well my first thought was simple standing cows which when shot drop. If the ragdoll pose animation is the cow standing it should be possible to place a number of them with the physics turned "off". The mapper could then place a brush around them which when shot triggers the physics to on. This would then make the cows go from standing to ragdol and they'd slump to the ground dead.

At least in theory...

sorry it took me so long. i completely forgot about checking here.

about the amount of bones. it looks ridiculous if the cow just falls over with it's leg stretched.... like a static cow made physic.

in my testfile, i modified a playerskeleton (removed all the fingers and some other bones) but it still is unnatural, because of the massive amount of flesh the cow has on its belly.

also, i couldn't figure out how to animate a ragdoll before it "drops".
i'm not sure if it is even possible...

i still like the idea of an animated prop_static a lot more...

Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you can animate a ragdoll, you can make a say 'dying' animation that will then swapout and change to the ragdoll and give us the lovely ragdoll 'flop'

In the end I think the work you're doing is good for your experience but in a MP game like DoD:S, which is pretty hard on systems, a ragdoll cow would not be high on most mappers list of things they'd like. On the other hand, static dead farmyard animals, static props like low poly busted up vehicles, etc are greatly appreciated and used.

One thing that's missing from all of DoD are enough blasted vehicles like destroyed cars or parts of cars that are blown apart. Things like that set the battlefield vision away from static beauty to static destruction. I have yet to see an adequately destroyed shell of an airplane...like a wing or a engine block and parts...a tail section or two, I've not seen tanks ripped apart with turrets have been blasted off, both armies ran on trucks yet there's no blasted truck...or a truck with a towed howitzer smashed to smitheriens. I know this stuff is hard to make and I'm not talented enough to do it...but I'd love to see stuff we can place in our maps that looks like it's been hit with a 88mm round.

fuzzdad: check the request forum please.

Originally posted by Sly Assassin
Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think you can animate a ragdoll, you can make a say 'dying' animation that will then swapout and change to the ragdoll and give us the lovely ragdoll 'flop'

i fear you're right :/

a little preview of the dying cow!


here (http://pedroleum.dod-federation.com/dod/diecow.avi) (avi, 2mb)

now i need to redo the animations (these were just for a quick test). i'm facing the next bigger problem: the animations are messed up after exporting. some bone movements aren't even in it...

cool thing is: the prop_dynamic entity allows different animations which are choosen randomly. that means i can do like 3 idle anims and they'll play all in random order :)

eat, look, eat, tailwhip, look, eat, DIE!!


for those interested, the hammer setup is:

1. a triggerbrush which is breakable. if the brush brakes/gets shot, it plays the "die-anim" on the cow model

2. the cow, placed as prop_dynamic.
it waits for the input from the triggerbrush and as soon as the "die-anim" is done playing, it starts to loop in the "dead-anim", which is a single frame.

So how is this animated cow going?

Check release section heh!

i havent worked on it for quite a while... sorry.
i'm still having problems posing it right. i messed up with the bones, since the cow cannot even eat while standing.
maybe they can stretch their neck or something, which is not possible to me.

well, i would have to redo the skeleton...

i cannot really say when they will be released...

Originally posted by deceiver
Check release section heh!

he was asking for the alive one ;)