fantasy character pack from Arteria

Arteria have just launched a fantasy character pack containing 5 animated characters including a male knight, female knight, female NPC, male NPC, and an additional female knight character




The most amazing part of this pack is the price at $44 (£23.50)

For more information please visit


http://www.arteria-gaming.com/fancharpack.html

I'm glad that I don't have to wake up next to her everyday.

Yeah...for a fantasy pack, the females are really.....butch.

yeah... these really miss the mark when it comes to being of the same quality as the other work on your site.. big time..

I thought that as well the characters seem to be very out of proportion and kinda weird looking all togethor.

Definitely well out of proportion, each one.
4/10.
See me after class.

You´re buildings are extremely nice, but character modeling (or anything organic) is a whole different ball game.

If these are your first attempts, then you have nothing to worry about...but I would try and make the female characters a bit more...erm....sexy.

The male character also looks awkward (maybe it´s his first time in full-plate armour), so maybe go for a more commanding superhero type stance to help sell him.

thanks at Pl for constructive crit - which i listen to dealy. The other comments here are quite offensive to my skills

The armour doesn't really look like armour should look. The helmet on the male is rather odd looking, I don't know what would hold the shoulder pieces on the female warrior and she is a bit exposed. The plates on the female warrior, around the waist are rather large and look quite uncomfortable. Also the male looks like he would have a great deal of problems bending his spine in any way at all as there is a single sheet of metal plating for the entire front torso.

... what I said was constructive... This doesn't meet your typically high standards.

I wasn't offering a way to fix it... I wouldn't know where to begin...

I'm just saying that this isn't up to your own par.

I would really think about lowering the polycount of these characters. They just don't have enough detail in them to warrant 2,000 and 4,000 polys. These days 2,000 polys is pretty low, I agree, but there's no sense using 2,000 just because you can. You could cut the poly counts in half without losing any detail at all.

you know what puzzles me...

These are games, we make games, not real situations. In most games the female always has exposed skin, even if in real life, this of course would not happen. Proportion wise, i understand that the problem i have here, is that the armour is making the female in particular more bulky. Her torso underneath is far more streamlined.

Also, as to the helment looking odd - can i ask why?

Steve

It's not just her torso. Her hips are huge, her thighs are huge, and her face is scary.

I can understand what people mean regarding the characters. I don't think that they are as well proportioned as say the ones from Cubixstudio or Basilstudio. They rank behind the characters from those two 'studios' - but, hey, at least they are not complete rubbish - I think the proof of the pudding will be in the animations. I certainly don't like the armour on the female characters.

Previously on the website there was a nice picture of a female in a medieval type dress - looked very nice. That picture has since been removed and I am hoping it has not been retracted from the pack.

Look at the range of animations - very impressive indeed. I note the 'mount_sit' animation, which I hope is in relation to the horse. These characters might really stand out when animated.

I am going to purchase this pack as this can hopefully lead to Arteria doing more packs.

With regard to the previously posted horse pack - some people who have bought it thought the animation was fine - I've not noticed anyone complaining.

I'll buy the horse pack and the character pack and keep the ball rolling on this.

Having said that, they have changed their purchasing system - I have no idea of how to purchase from their site. It wants an email and a password which seems to be a preset one, not just one you make up on the spot.

Puki, thankyou for the faith in my products. I think what kinda hurt here, and in respects to the horse posting too, was the total rip of what i had done. I have spent months doing this pack, and as an artist it really hurts when you get bad crit. ok.. i live in the real world, and i have a thick skin, but i was just so stunned with the comments here., because i genuinely stick by this pack. Ok, i can agree that proportionally the female characters in particular should be modified, but to say the face is scary is incredible.

The thing which might have hindered the pack further, from a promotion point of view is the ammount of dynamic lighting and shininess i had on the characters at the time - because when you look at the female face in particular with no lighting effects on, she looks a lot nicer.

Puki regarding the female medieval character - did you mean the one with the white dress on with the flower motive on? If so, this is in the pack too.

Regadring the purchasing system, i cant understand why your having problems with it, but if you like ill set up a special link for you to purchase the goods. Please let me know.

I just wished all the other people who posted here could at least give me and this pack a chanse, rather than just bringing art i create down all the time. There arnt many companies out there providing art like me, espceially the wide range of building packs i do, and sometimes guys we need a bit of praise, not just pulling things apart

http://www.arteria-gaming.com/knightani1.wmv

This only shows one animation, but you can clearly see the relaxed realistic motion of the character animation. And you know what.. i really do stand by this character, i think it looks great and proportioned correctly

"sometimes guys we need a bit of praise, not just pulling things apart"

These comments are coming from people who play games, develop games, or maybe even interested in your products if they lived up to the buyers expectations. Take the comments as constructive criticism.

You're buildings are nicely done, but the characters don't meet typical standards that people would expect to be paying for with a character(especially $45). It might be better to get constant feedback from the community as your developing these before UV Mapping and texturing to see if anyone is even interested in the first place... that way you don't feel like you've done it all for nothing.

The woman clearly isn't in an attractive female proportion... and let's face it... most game developers are guys and don't want to pay for an ugly chick.

Honestly, the womans face is scary. She has a cocain-bug eyedness about her and big fish lips. That is a creepy sight. That is nothing to take offense to... you are not her... it's the texture and that can be fixed or even adjusted moving around some verts.

ive never seen a knight fight like an urban boxer befor :)

@ "yertari" - when you press 'checkout' on your site, it asks for your email and password. I'm not sure what this is - if it is asking for your Paypal logins (which is what I am assuming) then this may (and probably will) affect sales as the purchaser is putting this info into your site's form rather than your site calling the relevent Paypal page and the purchaser entering that info directly into Paypal which, as far as I know, is the norm.

I realize you've spent alot of time on these characters, but they could use some improvement.

First, the animations are clearly motion-capture, but you've failed to clean it up afterwards. Something that is clearly visible by the footing of the knight in your video above.

Second, you use way to much polygons in places where you don't need any. Good example is around the mouth of the female, and the nose. The nose is just a bump on her face, but you still used lots and lots of polygons defining it.

Third, the anatomy of your characters arms and fingers is just weird. This could be because of the clothes, but it draws my attention and just "feel" wrong"



Fourth, The UV mapping could be done better. It looks a bit hasty, and especially if you look at the feet - not very nice at all. Considering the armor, where every piece looks like its got a different coordinate on a "cloud filter texture", it would be wiser to map all the plates together and paint an unified armor texture over it.

Fifth, the armor has a very low polycount (at least looks like it) compared to the characters.

I hope you consider this as constructive critisism.

EDIT:
I subscribe to www.3d.sk, and I'm posting a few hints for you in form of images from there. If you need any human referance pictures, you should seriously consider subscribing to it too.

HI,

I am a member of 3dsk. If you look at my knight, then look at the texture on the first knight picture you posted, you will notice the same texture.
I value the crit, given by you too - very constructive indeed. By the way, these are the first characrers i have ever made

Steve

Puki,

Basically, the Login is for Existing members only, and the rest of the form is for creating a new account. i know having a simple paypal button before was easier, but the ammount of time it was taking me to manually ship out all orders was getting taking too much time, so i had to implement an automatic download and payment system.

Steve

Aren't subscribers supposed to receive all the contents you made for one year? I am not receiving your last packs.

Jedive, why didnt you email me with this?

If you look on your members login area, you will see the pack available for download


Steve

Mmm, I've never seen any 'Member Log-in' area.

Puki, there isnt from the main screen - arteria members have a special page they go to to log into my members area, similar to when you purchase

Do non-members still get emailed links like previously?

No... you use the same members download area. When you purchased the products, you should have recieved an email with a password on and link to where you need to go to download.

From your reply here, i guess you havent recieved these

Ill sort this out

Steve

Yep, you were right - I never got an email.

I knew there must be a missing element, coz none of it was making any sense to me.

Our order system e-mails didn't include the instructions for downloading the products, and therefore we have amended the e-mails to point to the client area, where you can download the products using the e-mail and password you signed up with.

www.arteria-gaming.com/billing/client_area.php

Heh, I am in - yippee.

Any chance that my other purchases can be added to the account at some point?

Fantasy theme pack
Dungeon theme pack
Medieval town and castle pack
Castle Construction pack

Alot of the characters just look to clunky im not sure how to describe it. The textures seem to be pretty good but as far as the mesh goes I think you need to form them a little better to fit the body more. The animation you showed above looks like a free mocap I saw awhile back but its not bad, the only complaint about that is with that armor I dont think that character would move like he does. Hope you take this as constructive criticism.

I do take it as contrsuctive crit. The only problem is.. with respects to the movement of armour, is that problems of it moving.

Its hard for people who dont model, or skin models to apreciate just how hard it is to set up a character with vertice weighting. If for example i had the armour rigid (as it would be in the real world), then unforunataly due to the way characters move in games, the armour would cut through the body when he bows etc. This is why the armour, gels with the body and moves like that.

Regading the mocap, it is not free.. i have a library of 800 micaps that i purchased to use commercially.

1] - your static work is great - houses..etc.
2] - you character modeling needs some seriouse work,
i dont think you should be selling your first shots
at character modeling..its not really wise..stick to your
strengths until your 90% sure your work is up to
standard.
[theyre not that bad..but i dont think good enough to sell.]

I do appreciate how difficult it can be to rig characters..
- im not an animtor but ive tested out rigs with freebie
- mocap files..

3] - ignore me..what do i know.
- mmmm....more tea, yes..thats what i need..

i hope that wasnt offensive, im jst trying to be honest.