WIP Dragon - Low(ish) poly

Still very WIP. He is going to get boned :) (hence the wierd leg pose)
Thought Id try and model something straight out of my head, with no imageplanes, using 1 cube with extrusion & subdiv.
Ive never tried a dragon before.. so here it is :/
www.d-grafix.com/temp/dragon.png

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Thanks All for the feedback,
I had an hour spare last night so worked on the wings:
Thanks for the bat wing pic GFK, it reminded my brain what a wing looks like :) About the legs though, they cant be identical to the front, they were extruded in a totally different way (fatter and more muscular), it may be the angle that is wierd. The limbs havent been 'posed' for easier boning.
What do you think of the new wings:
www.d-grafix.com/temp/dragon2.jpg
Legs will be easier to show when more finished and properly posed.

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Thanks again for the feedback:
Heres 'Barney' the Dragon v3 with the new, 'GFK's bat' inspired wings:
www.d-grafix.com/temp/dragon3.jpg

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Thought id get into this as again as i had a few hours spare at the weekend..
I finally bothered to learn blender's anim system now that theres a b3d exporter. All i can say is WOW! it is very easy to use compared to the other software ive been using in the past.
I threw the lot into my "SpriteForge" program after exporting from blender as b3ds and this was the result.
They are mostly using SF's isometric mode but some are in perspective mode:

walk (with a frame missing :) , fly and die:



Melee (im-gonna-rip-your-head-off) attack & ranged (fire/roar) attacks and de-activate/active wing fold:



The animations are not final sprites or anything, just testers


Here is the latest one showing the lo-polyness and boneyness:

Oooh.

He looks very exciting.

I think you should call him "Barney".

Barney it is then :)

Aren't those wings in reverse?

Wing example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:GreyHeadedFlyingFoxWingspan.jpg

lol, mabe, i did it out of my head. I will return to the wings once he gets some eyes etc...

The wings aren't reversed, unless you want it to fly backwards. :)

Its all a bit too square tbh, looks like a novelty coffee table.

The wings should taper to a point at the end, and each of the bones should be joined to a single point at the front. Like this:


The back legs are all wrong, too - they shouldn't be identical to the front legs.

Coments posted to first post.

The shape is better, but the outer vertical bones (in the inset pic - if you see what I mean?) should be joined directly onto the top of the inner bone.

The way you've got it at the moment - it would be physically impossible for the dragon to fold its wings. Think of how all the 'arms' on an umbrella come from a single, central point. Dragon's wings should be the same.

Hmm, i see your point...

I originally imagined him folding his wings like this (from front view):

/\/Ö\/\

Kind of a vertical folding motion using 3 joints, but i think your way may look better ;/

Great job so far. Please post a vid, once you have some aniamtions to show!

Thought id get into this as again as i had a few hours spare at the weekend..

Updated.. (see top)

Definitely looks better.

Doesn't look so much like a table now that it moves. ;)

lol

Does your mesh distort when converted to .b3d? I'm wondering if you have this problem.

no, it was fine. But it is probably because i modeled it from just 1 cube so had no children to worry about.
Did you 'apply rotation and scaling' b4 export? As i remember i had this problem with the X exporter, all the children would go wonky if you didnt apply it.
I have not tried this exporter with more than one mesh.

Im dont like the dragon very much (but It´s ok), but the animations are very nice. Well done!

Those animations are looking good....

hey i like it!
if i would be a game programmer, i would sure take use of those :) if you dont mind ;)

Dan, that looks terrific,. I want it for Arteria!

Steve

Where did you learn to do that in blender? I must learn.

from the tutorial videos and stuff from the blender website.
Its a really great system you basically create a bone and use the e-extrude key to rig your model. the cool thing i like is you can extrude more then 1 node at once :) It obviously helps a lot if you already know the modeller well as the controls for animation rigging and editing are the same.

I have to agree, as a most basic model man myself, I think its a very fine job. Def indie game quality and I sure would be honored to use this in a game. Very well done.

Looks good Dan, glad to see you have learnt Blender inside out :)

Walking I would suggest that it should have wings folded.

Flapping it's wings, the wings should curl more on the up stroke and open more for the down.


This also means you'll need from flying to walking and walking to flying.
I would suggest that the walking to flying would be something like it jumping and opening it's wings.
And the landing would be either fold wings and land heavily or land lightly with wings out then fold.