TopDown Characters

[Petr Schreiber]

Here is a list of planned game characters as extracted from other thread:

Characters

? ? ? Napotani Space Pilot, Rank private
New Berlin Space Academy
Frank Mordun Flight Coach
New Berlin Space Academy
Roberto Napotani Father of Marc
former commander of a Space mining ship
Katarina Napotani Mother of Marc
former Space Pilot, injured in battle, then house wife
Antony Mc Burton President,
Luna Transports Cooperation
Jordan Millerson Mechanic,
Luna Transports Cooperation
Nora Erikson Intercom Agent
Spaceport M15
Angie Patrick Communication Officer
Rank Corporal,
15th InterOrbital Marines, United World Federation Forces
Ranjgid Surikahela Fighter Pilot
Rank Air Captain
23th Spacepatrol Coorps, UWFF
Sergey Wulkoev Fighter Pilot
Rank Air Captain
3rd Space rangers Platoon, UWFF

Bye,
Petr

Edit main characters name, as you guys wanna have the sex optional.

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi,

I had one idea about main character, what about making it ??? "TopDown" Napotani.

Why TopDown as nick name? To make clear why the game is named so weird :) and also...

Did you know our hero / heroine had a quite hard time on the academy ?
During the first exams he/she was very nervous, so flying an aircraft ( part of test ) was very difficult for Napotani.

More bad, somebody intentionally damaged one of the jet engines which made the aircraft almost uncontrollable, thats why Napotani was flying to top layers of stratosphere and down, almost to city houses level.

Our character almost drowned in lake nearby the academy where he finally fell with the aircraft...


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

Sounds cool. :)

[kryton9]

Great!! I love it. Topdown as the nickname, brilliant and nice story for the nickname!!!

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi guys,

I have one idea to make our life easier/harder :)

Napotani... I think making our hero to be he / she is not very natural.
What about Marc (?) Napotani as a man character and girl with other name as his girlfriend / wife ?

Then we will have 2 playable characters, at some point story could branch and you could decide which character you will stick with OR you choose on start you are mr. Napotani or girl and you stay with it for all game. Don't know what is better...

In most cases guy and girl would fly together ( same mission plot ), but there could be few missions different for each one.

This will avoid "dual" main hero state.

What do you think ?


Bye,
Petr

P.S. I would suggest shorter hair for the girl, as long hair would need extra animation.

[kryton9]

I am all for easier. I think having a single hero character will be a lot easier. This is not a commercial release anyways, so it doesn't have to be all encompassing.

I still think we should finish the instant action game and sharpen all our skills making that fun and then with those skills move onto the mission game. I will write more about it in the proper thread.

[Michael Hartlef]

I' all for what you guys are comming up with. :)

[kryton9]

Mike welcome back!!

[Michael Hartlef]

Thanks Kent.

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Mike and kryton,

I was thinking ( dangerous, I know ) and it occured to me that when we manage to finish first mission from story oriented game, we will have most of the hard stuff done.

It would cover:
* Camera and ship control
* Collisions and interaction with static objects ( asteroids, chunks )
* That mini part of being on boss station in third person

Then in other missions we have to solve "just" AI for enemies and their models ( ?! )

What do you think ?


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

Yes, that sounds logical to me.

[kryton9]

You are right Petr, but that is a lot to get the engine to that great point. You have your hands full!!

[Petr Schreiber]

I know kryton :),

but in last years I have feeling I am making the same games just with different models/environment. I need to evolve skills a bit or I will remain obsolete :)


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

Petr, TopDown is pretty different from RoboDuell.

[kryton9]

I feel the same way at times. That is what is good about games, so much to learn and do that there always seems something you can do better each time. Topdown is pushing us all and making life fun!!

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi guys,

I have one idea - that 3rd person part on stations would be interesting, but quite redundant - lot of extra modeling and animating but from player point of view just nonsense walking.
I think we could follow this plot on station - There would be 3D station in all its beauty displayed on background ( maybe just detail like hangar ) and in foreground there would be simple GUI with heads of people ready to talk to you ( Boss, Nora Erikson, ... ). By clicking the head you could perform brief "interview" with optional subtitles. I think something similar was done in Aquanox and it was usable scheme for action oriented game.

Also I would like to ask any of you two guys to sketch/hq render faces of our heroes, once we know how they look it will help to "personalize" the project :) I know it is very hard so please take your time.


Bye,
Petr


Bye,
Petr

[kryton9]

I got an idea to get the ball rolling. Why don't we all take the character list, and then do image searches for actors that we would like to see in those roles.

Then we could compare our image lists and then narrow down the look. Since Mike has a working Poser application, it would be easier for him, but of course lots of work to make the characters, but it would be so much faster than if I tried to do them in Blender. Or I could make them quickly, but they would look like robots :)

[Petr Schreiber]

Hehe,

this is excellent idea kryton!
It didn't occured to me to do it this way, good good !


Bye,
Petr

[kryton9]

Glad you liked the idea, but your idea to have visual for characters is good idea. It does help the rest of the project having personalities. Just like having the names that Mike came up with brought it a long and gave it some personality, now some visuals will do the same. So glad you brought it up!!

[Michael Hartlef]

Ok guys, I will get you some pictures. Just head closeups?

[Petr Schreiber]

Yes please !

I spend whole night thinking how our characters could look but finally no clear idea was generated. Hope you guys will have better luck :)


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

I have a big library of beautiful and not so beautiful people for Poser so I'm sure I can come up with something. Gimme a second :)

[Michael Hartlef]

Please welcome.... (drum roll)

Angie Patrick !!!

Angie is a Communication Officer of the 15th InterOrbital Marines, United World Federation Forces. She has a rank of a Corporal and is currently stationed on the M15 Space Station.

She is a 26 yrs old american who joint the forces right after she finished high school at the age of 18. Serving in the Forces doesn't leave her much time for a relationship. So guys, she is single!! I'm sure the pilots love comming to M15 as the first thing they will her is her lovely voice.

[kryton9]

Mike that is great, nice bio, character and images!!

[Petr Schreiber]

Awesome!

Really perfect, pleasure to meet her :)
Mike thank you very much!

Just one question - in poser you have some characters to play with which have fixed look, or can you customize it a bit ?

I had FaceGen Modeller 3.1 demo, and there was possible to change face completely using various sliders. Does Poser woork similarly ?


This is exciting, thanks again ;),
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

NP guys. I'm glad you like them.

Yes, in Poser you can change a lot.

[Michael Hartlef]

Man, girls are storming the office to get the jobs today ;D

Ok, please welcome Nora Erikson !!!

Nora is a 27 yrs old girl from Norway. Her mother is a norwaygian, but her father is german. That's where she got the brown hair from. She is an Intercom Agent at Space Station M15 and most likely you will get to know her, when you didn't behave around the station's orbit. She is a good friend of Angie and together they spend quite some time in the free time. Once Angie has time :)

[Petr Schreiber]

;D

Thanks Mike, hair looks photorealistic!

Very interesting ! Just one thing - the colorful part of eye seems a bit bigger than usual ( but fact is I am used to watch people with eyes tired from monitors so I am kind of loosing chance to determine what is normal look :) )

Good work again! And she is clearly distinguishable from Angie.

Very good, this activity boosts my powers for further TopDown developement :)


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

I will make the iris smaller.


And she is clearly distinguishable from Angie

Ofcourse, the are not related. :)

Now off to some guys.

[Michael Hartlef]

Guys, the boss is here :-X

Antony McBurton !!!

Mr. McBurton is the President of Luna Transports Coorperations. He leads his company with an iron hand but also has a good heart. People say he's around 55 yrs old, maybe 60. But noone knows exactly. Make sure you are good with him, he can become your worst nightmare, once you are on his Black list.

[Michael Hartlef]

A war hero arrived. Make room for

Sergey Wulkoev !!!

Sergey, a 32 yrs old russian, serves as a Fighter Pilot in the 3rd Space Rangers Platoon. Of course it is a fighting group of the UWFF. He has the rank of an Air Captain and is highly respected for is combat skills. Sometimes his attitude is a little below the belly. But hey, when you have bunch of Stinky Bugs behind your butt, it is normal to loose your manners somewhere. ;)

[Petr Schreiber]

Mike,

this is perfect casting :D

The boss looks a bit like man I had past semester for math-III course :)
I am curious what will kryton think about him, as it seems he is very focused on this key character.



But hey, when you have bunch of Stinky Bugs behind your butt, it is normal to loose your manners somewhere

;D - terrific


Thanks,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

Ok, I think the last cukie for you guys.

I wasn't sure if the guy was the right one for the McBurton role. So I asked him to talk a line. See yourself. I thought he did ok.

P.S: This voice and line is a sample of MIMIC, so I won't be able to reproduce the tone exactly.

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi Mike,

the animation is more than I expected !
Looks pretty cool, nice ! Now I see it IS my profesor from math :D

I had problems with playing the video but then I realized I have kind of damaged codec. After installing fresh one it played ok.

What are the white places on Sergeys head ?

Thanks DO again LOOP for your work Mike,
Petr

[Petr Schreiber]

Hi,

I extracted head of James from Poser DEMO and tried to play few tricks on it :)
This is just little experiment, I am sure it wont be necessary in the game ( better to prerender for comlink ).
But to make you a bit entertained...

I just setup bones in thinEdge using colors, sadly I probably did some wrong turn so part of face is wrong smoothed ( I moved with those vertices maybe ).

Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

What are the white places on Sergeys head ?

Thanks DO again LOOP for your work Mike,
Petr


NP Petr, I had fun doing them. My wife asked the same about the hair. I said it is fairy gold. :) But I think it is some kind of render error. When the time comes, I will look into it.

Your sample was funny. Did you had smooth set to off?

[kryton9]

I wake up and see this incredible dialog between you guys and the incredible characters, animations. I am just blown away at how wonderful they all are. I am out of breathe from excitement and amazement at what Mike came up with. Then to add that incredible video with speech and lip synch. I am out of my chair with disbelief!!!

THen Petr does bones on a head and makes it animated. Petr you need to make a video on how to do bones in such cases. It is a secret only you know in tbgl.

Mike, I got to say this again. You are great at character bios, finding looks, incredible job you have done. No need for looking for images. You are nailing down great looks to match the characters. The boss man was different than what I had in my mind's eye. But in reading your more detailed bio about him, that guy matches nicely. You can see how he could be a great friend or a nightmare if an enemy. Great job!!

The girls are hot. I am single you know. I have a bad heart, but looking at those beauties, makes my heart beat better. Thanks!!

[Michael Hartlef]

Ok Kent, then no body shots for you, ok? :D I don't wanna risk your health.

Anyway, thanks guys, it is a pleasure to do this.

[kryton9]

Mike, I never thought about the bodies... Oh man, time for some medicine :)

[Petr Schreiber]

:D

I have seen the faces one by one, but I was so happy from each of them I created heavily improvised lunch for rest of house :) Well, too much endorphines on my side so the meal was kind of weird :D.

Mike, as I said, there is problem with smoothing. But I think I know what is reason, it is possibly one of my weird optimizations for smoothing algo, consider it fixed please :)

Awesome awesome awesome characters ... :)

kryton, it seems bones are still mystery for you. But it is very easy! You gived me idea for next TBGL tutorial ;)


Bye,
Petr

[Petr Schreiber]

Ok,

tbgl smoothing now works on my PC, I have sent Eros new TBGL which will appear in next thinBASIC preview :)
It should be both more correct and from 50 to 20% faster in all cases I tested.

Bye,
Petr

[kryton9]

Petr I am happy you have another tutorial coming and on bones!!

[ErosOlmi]

Thanks Petr. I will release it quite soon but because we need to fix some few new features I do not want let all wait so here it is a preview TBGL from Petr.
Have fun.
Eros

[Michael Hartlef]

Hi guys,

here is another character. Please welcome....

Jordan Millerson !!!

Jordan, 32 yr old british fellow, is a mechanic working for Luna Transports Cooperation.
When it comes to repairing the shuttles of LTC, Jordan can do wonders.
He doesn't get along with Mr. Button to well, but the boss know's about Jordan's
qualities and would never let him go. ;)

I hope you will like him.

Michael

[kryton9]

Mike, your characters are incredible. Thanks another wonderful addition that is for sure. I like the bio's for each person too. Really adds to the characters and game!!

[Petr Schreiber]

Many thanks Mike,

another perfect character!
I must recode the TopDown core to see at least some of the humans in communication window.


Bye,
Petr

[Michael Hartlef]

Thanks Kent for the encouraging words :)

[kryton9]

Mike the least I could do after your awesome creations. It is really motivating and exciting to see them.

Petr that will be great to see the characters in the comm screen.

[Michael Hartlef]

Ok, this it. :D I was looking at this, and what was already done. To much to be left in the dark. I will continue to work further on this.

[Petr Schreiber]

I still remember names of all characters :)
Do you plan different approach on the topic, or revive the idea of game as top down shooter?

My time is more limited now than in the times Top Down appeared, but I am still willing to help where possible.

[Michael Hartlef]

No different approach. I will concentrate on media at the moment. What else comes, I will see.

[kryton9]

Mike, I see TopDown as something as a work in progress over a long time. Making media for it is a good a way to work on it when inspired to do so.
Can't wait to see what you come up with in this period of creative excitement.