Need some C&C on this 3d character please

[misterx]

Been playing around, was wondering what you all think of this one?

not sure if i want to use him....

busy working on a second one, with 15 more frames to try and smooth out his walk and slow him down some.

<disclaimer>

cant take all the credit for this guy, I saved him from a game my son has (using the print screen key, had to save over 100 pics of this guy to try and get him to animate. And i wont go into how long it took me to take all the daft background away and line up the different frames.

(using this messing around time to try and learn how the body moves when walking)

thanks for any C&C

Ohh just wondering, is there any free 3d programs, that let you animate quickly?  Was looking at poser, but thats out of my price range.

[Minimi]

1. was the game name "The Sims"?
2. Yes there is a free 3d render program www.blender3d.org

[Hollister Man]

Well, Since this is C&C, I think that the view is a little too far "over head".  On the other note, If you want quality, Poser is the way to go.  Only drawback is that there is no way to build complex backgrounds in Poser.  Another option is to get one of us with Poser to help.  You can DL a demo of poser 4 to play with, render a few animations, and pixel edit to get the way you want it.  I plan on having most of the chars in KQIIX:adventure in poser.  We'll see.  

[Minimi]

is poser easy to learn? I'm right now using 3dmax for making my characters, but that'll take a while! and the result aint that good! So is it easy to learn poser"?

[Neole]

Reminds me of an adventure game called 'Dark Earth' which was a lot of fun to play. The characters were real time 3D (prerendered backgrounds) and looked a bit like this.

[GarageGothic]

Poser is very easy to learn to use but difficult to master. It has a bad reputation because it's very accesible, and lots of newbies turn out cookie-cutter artwork that looks all the same.

I've used versions 3 and 4 a lot and it took me years before I got beyond the classic Poser look (you'll learn to recognize and despise it VERY fast). Good texturing and lots of morphs (mesh modifications) are necessary to create unique characters.

I'm currently using it for a game, but I spend a lot of time getting rid of the rendered look. Here are some examples of what I did with it:

Early test of sketch-rendering style:


Animated:


And with retouched face:

[Minimi]

ok tnx... im just going to try the program and see if the interface is good for me, and if ill get around with it..

[danny*]

is poser easy to learn? I'm right now using 3dmax for making my characters, but that'll take a while! and the result aint that good! So is it easy to learn poser"?

3dmax needs a lot of your time to produce decent characters and BG's.
The result can be far better than Poser!!It depends on you and your patience.....
Poser is much easier,but gives you only the realistic style in characters.

[Igor]

Agree with what everyone already said- Poser is a nice alternative for everyone who don't want to spend hours and hours on drawing/modeling their own characters. As Danny said, the results aren't nowhere near as good as with original characters, but they are still completely acceptable.

GarageGothic's character is a bright exception (especially the first- white one), but then again, i'd say it's more of a original character than Poser one.

Btw, sometime ago i was reviewing Poser3 and so i was playing with it a bit (nothing fancy- didn't even use textures). I was especially interested, if it's possible to create something else than a sterile realistic characters. I found out it is... in a way. However, "set in stone" main characteristics of existing models, prevent you from having any real freedom in building the character- it's very limited... The typical Poserish feel is still there too. Well, i must admit it was fun though (i think that's the main strenght of Poser).
Here's caricatured character that i came up with after a few minutes of moving sliders


Sorry for bad scan, but i lost original pic