Artist needed for 3D meshes & animations [Tennis game]

[ManuTOO]

Hello,

for the upcoming Tennis Elbow 2006, I'm looking for a 3D artist to create 1 tennis male player mesh, and the according textures and animations.

I'd need something approaching the quality of Top Spin 1's meshes :
http://media.xbox.ign.com/media/492/492737/imgs_4.html
but with a few less details, as the players height will almost never be more than 240 pixels on the screen.

Poly counts : 2 details levels => 1000 and 2000 polys
Texture size: at very least 256x256, but better to have 512x512, or even 1024x1024 if it's needed.

To do the animations, you should have access to some video of tennis matches (preferably with top 10 players, available on BitTorrent), or you could retranscribe the 2d animations from Tennis Elbow 2005 :
http://www.managames.com/tennis/info_en.html

The animations needed are :
- forehand, 1-handed backhand, 2-handed backhand (~20 keys each)
- forehand volley, backhand volley, smash (~15 keys each)
- service, and service waiting (total of ~40 keys)
- sidestep, front run, back run, waiting (total of ~30keys)
- extra : sliced backhand, side run, return waiting, winner fist (gesture), throw racket to ground and get it back (total of ~60 keys)

If you're interested, please contact me there :
contact [-a-t-] managames [d.o.t] com

Please give me quotes for the following tasks :
- initial mesh + initial texture
- additional mesh with little variations in the shape (to do a different player)
- set of 10 T-shirts and 10 shorts
- additional head (mesh + texture)
- 1st set of animations
- extra animations
- additional set of animations

I need 1 quote per line... depending of the price, I may take several items of same kind.
The work needs to be done for next February (or possibly March).


Thanks !

[EDIT: Position filled... not looking anymore]

[Sysiphus]

Hey, just to mention you that model you linked has more than 500-1000 tris. I know as do this as my profession. I may be wrong but I'd say is...no less than 2500. probably over 3000, even. havent look well those jpgs.But has fingers, details in mesh and stuff, and well anathomy modelling, besides seems -again, dunno from those jpg well- head-face is well detailed in geometry. I have done models like those of 2500. And a bit less detailed, of 2000.

So, the artists who made that may never reach that quality with even 1000 tris.

Just to warn you :)

[ I have done that kind of thing (main model and textures, and anims of a game , for an indy developer who ended very happy with it) but i cannot answer with speed now, and anyway, I'd be really expensive now, I am afraid. ]

Oh, and if I myself would have to do it, the animations you have in game as you mention, are great help for the artist. besides they will surely be of your likes, already. So great for him to use as an base idea to animate in 3d.

Oh, the public and all, if is not a texture, can eat a lot...

[vjvj]

Sys is right, it will be difficult to get that level of quality with less than 2500 triangles. A 500 triangle model will get you something that looks like a Dungeon Siege 1 character.

What are you targeting as your min spec? Two 2500 triangle models + a tennis court is a pretty low density scene.

[impossible]

Even on relatively low end hardware you can easily have 3000-5000 polygon character models in a tennis game. It might not be necessary if your players are always 240 pixels high but it won't hurt either. Drawing 15k-25k polygons per frame isn't a strain even on low budget hardware a couple of years old (GF2MX, GF4MX.)

I also don't see why LODs are necesarry. In a tennis game you're looking at the same characters at roughly the same distance the entire time, unless you plan on doing very detailed close up facial shots or something?

[ManuTOO]

Thanks to point this out ! :)

But actually, by quality, I didn't think about the level of details, but about the esthetical result.
In my game, I won't use close-up like on the screenshot of Top Spin I linked to, so I really don't need to have fingers modelled, etc...
But I need beautiful model & texture, and also realistic animations. So I'd like to have good balance in the player shape, fluid & powerful strike animations, and so on...

I'm targetting for my min spec a P2-500mhz with a TNT1 card, badly configurated. Such computer can roughly produce 300'000 polys/s, in the best case. At 60 fps, that's a scene with 5000 polys. With 4 players (in double) I could have them all in 1000 polys each... So the 500-poly LOD is not absolutely needed, but it's just to be sure to run on most computers possible.
Some of my current users (of Tennis Elbow 2005) even have lower computers than this min spec.

The tennis court & crowd will be only a background texture. Basically, the game will still have a 2D look (no camera movement), except the players will be in 3D with all the advantages it gives : smoother animations, possibility to change short & t-shirt, etc...


@Sysiphus :

I won't need these stuff before next February, so there's nothing hurry.
I'm not sure what u mean by "would be really expensive now"... it sounds like "expensive" ! ;)
However, I could pay a normal price for this stuff if quality is there, so maybe you could send me your quotes...

[impossible]

I'm targetting for my min spec a P2-500mhz with a TNT1 card, badly configurated. Such computer can roughly produce 300'000 polys/s, in the best case.
How many people are actually running machines like this that want to play your game? I think you're hurting the quality of your game to appeal to a very small section of people buying the game, unless you know for a fact that you can get 1000s of sales from people with extremely low end (7-8 yearold) machines.

[ManuTOO]

P2-500mhz + TNT1 is the average config of "only" 5 years ago.

I did a survey lately, and I did a quick check to see what CPUs & Video cards have my current customers.
Most CPUs are quite more powerful, but about video cards, many people (almost half) just don't know what they have, so I guess a good part of them have integrated intel solution, and I'm really not sure of the power of this kind of chipset... :confused:

[impossible]

P2-500mhz + TNT1 is the average config of "only" 5 years ago.

I don't think P2-500 mHz\TNT1 is the average config of 5 years ago. The TNT was released in 1998, and I think at the time it was a "gamers card", that is most of the people that bought one have probably have bought a new computer. Nvidia didn't really start to come on top until the TNT2 and Geforce 256, during the TNT release 3DFX was still on top. And when it comes to processor speed even a cheap ($600) Dell machine from 5 years ago (this time in 2000) had a 800 Mhz Celeron.

I did a survey lately, and I did a quick check to see what CPUs & Video cards have my current customers.
Most CPUs are quite more powerful, but about video cards, many people (almost half) just don't know what they have, so I guess a good part of them have integrated intel solution, and I'm really not sure of the power of this kind of chipset... :confused:
Most people do have fast CPUs and intel integrated graphics, but this isn't that bad of a setup. Intel Integrated graphics that are come with pentium 4 machines are definitely a lot more powerful than a TNT, they even have pixel shaders (the newest one has ps 2.0 support.)

[Sysiphus]

kudos for the game.

Checked the demo, I like the feeling.

Against to what some people think, doing a 1000 tris or 500 is easier than 2000 or more. 500 makes hard to do a nice tennis player, though.

I tend to prefer 2000. I'd recommend so for a tennis game.Even more,but depends on the target audience.

in 1998 a celeron 400 was pretty a low thing to buy...And it did tend(the average cheap pc) to have i710 in mo board, which actually could play some 3d games not very low...

Well configured a tnt2 could go with counter strike first versions, even well for an fps game. But yep, bad configured, is the key.

I think most low pcs today do have (intels as lower) gf 4mx at least.many atis radeon. rage models...ati1 9000 , 9100, 9200, 9250...are usual. A 9100 I've seen it in production with 100,000 tris levels and huge count characters.

Those old pcs never changed by many casual users, yep. Those can have whatever. But office and inet browsers started to kill by themselves those machines some time ago. Would be interesting to have some solid statistics about the average shareware game customer. As of it depends a lot of stuff.

Well, then I may write you later as you mention.


Here's some of my 3d stuff (I do all type of graphics included pixel art or illustration.Anything 2d or 3d.) Most of this is just home exercises, so unended or so.

a hi res wip, untextured and not ended
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=orcc4.jpg&h=xs50&d=05416
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=orcc1.jpg&h=xs50&d=05416

a 2600+ tris model. rigged and ready to animate.This are only rig tests,not animations. a texture of 1024.
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=clintweght.jpg&h=xs55&d=05463
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=clin.jpg&h=xs55&d=05463
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=fin0.jpg&h=xs52&d=05430

a model of 1,800 tris. Done way long ago.Untextured.
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=1800tris_barbarian9b.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372

an space ship, done for pure fun. Two textures of 1024. I think about 2000 tris or less.
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=ship20.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=ship25.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=ship27.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372

a colt .45, around 1000 tris. One texture of 1024.
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=cltscr3.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=cltscr1.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372
http://xs.to/xs.php?f=cltscr6.jpg&h=xs46&d=05372

[ManuTOO]

I bought my TNT 1 in February 1999; it was the best card available in that time, and was still clearly a gamer choice. At the same moment, P2-500 was available but still very expensive, so I got a Celeron 333@500mhz, 5~6 times cheaper for same power ; my boss with his brand new P2-500 was quite astonished ! :p

but I guess I'd drop the 500 polys version, to save some bucks. If I have many users complaining, I could still get one later...

PS: the Celeron 800 was out on 2001 Q1
http://www.megagames.com/news/html/hardware/intelprocessorreleasescheduleannounced.shtml
according to this link, the P3-750mhz was available for $262 in mid-2000... cheap enough. :)

[impossible]

I bought my TNT 1 in February 1999.
TNT2 came out in early 1999, so maybe you just missed it.

PS: the Celeron 800 was out on 2001 Q1
http://www.megagames.com/news/html/hardware/intelprocessorreleasescheduleannounced.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors#Celeron_.28Pentium_I I-based.29 wikipedia says otherwise (December 1999.) You're from France, maybe your dates are when this hardware first became easily available in France?

This thread is getting seriously derailed by hardware history and arguments about what the "average" casual gamer's computer looks like. I'm not telling you not to target lowend machines, I'm just saying don't put too much extra effort into supporting a small number of customers and definitely don't let it hurt the quality of your game.

[vjvj]

One thing to note as well is that retail NVIDIA drivers stopped supporting chips older than GeForce2 MX a while back (check the release notes in the latest driver).

So if you do support TNT2, don't expect the old "make sure you have the latest drivers" line to work :)