(This first post will be updated every time I change something on the current status of the models or/and the mod itself)
So here I am, doing my first attempts to model something.
I have being inspired by all the amazing people of this community, but in special by @Kittyodoom, and also by Wild Settles Mod.
As I was babling on Kitty’s space, I want to team up with whoever be interested to help me out to finally do a very requested mod: a playable cat race:
Purrfect Villagers!
My oldest cat, Thor, gentlely posed for me:
Body
tail
This one is Luna:
Head
body
The two together:
model comparison
Guys, be nice: this is my first time EVER using any 3D program. EVER. Except for Autocad, like 10 years ago, but that doesn’t count. XD
I love how clean your first cat model is! Even though it’s practically all in stark white, the shapes are very “readable”; with a little more shading and the textures/features you mentioned (e.g. stripes or colour patches) you’ll have an awesome variety of easily identifiable villagers here.
I would suggest you think about the tail’s shape; at the moment it looks like a cardboard cut-out, and when I think of cats’ tails I generally think of the round ones. 3x3 voxels might be too thick, but the current single-width seems 2-dimensional IMO… it may be possible to use 2x2 voxels but have the tail curl/curve, so it looks balanced overall (i.e. close to symmetrical), or possibly a 3-wide by 2-high tail so it still has volume but isn’t so chunky.
I can’t wait to see what you come up with from here on, you’re right in saying that there are a LOT of people who want to play Stonehearth as a cat or cat-person race!
Oh you have no idea how I’m struggling wt this. It can’t be two-width, since the model has a 1 voxel center core. It has to be 3, but is way too much.
Unless… unless I do it kinda wavy? I will see what I can do, and I will tag you when I get a result.
Yeah, I agree it’s too chunky. That’s why I mentioned the “curly” approach earlier, it’s the same idea as you said with “wavy” just different degrees and wording – I was thinking of a tail swishing side to side or curled around in a loop, but when you used the word wavy you made me realise that you could probably get away with just having it zigzag from side to side by a couple of blocks’ width.
Of course, if you can get some help animating the tail to swish around, that makes it a ton easier to hide any irregularities!
Another thought which comes to mind is to use a plus shape, so it’s still 3x3 but less chunky (it might look more rounded to some people, although personally I see the plus shape as having very hard edges.)
Or, there’s the more radical solution of adding an extra voxel of width to the model – the easiest way to do that is to cut it down the vertical center line using a selection tool or knife tool (depends on the program), and then simply add the extra layer of voxels before sticking the two halves back together. That means you’re working with an even-width rather than an odd-width model, so 2x2 works easily for things like tails and noses.
The model is really nice - just a tad bit “too bright” on the eyes; it lacks shades and/or patterns to make it easier on the eyes (as previously mentioned).
Nonetheless, it’s a great looking model! I would never have guessed it was your first time playing around with voxels.
And, I do agree with @YetiChow - the 1-wide tail is “too little”; the 3x3 tail is “too much”.
It seems a 2x2 would be ideal, and if it is animated to have little blocky chunks I think it could look very pretty!
(So, the cat model with no tail + an animated 2x2 tail added separately)
Like I said before, I have @Kittyodoom work inspiring me!
I feel like not evolving much working on the tail right now. I swith my attention to the head’s shape. Lets see if after a few days playing wt StoneVox I start to kick up some ideas.
hahah that looks great though, I reckon the “plus” shapes work well for the fluffy effect.
On the other hand, the 2x2 tail is perfect for straighter and leaner styles… it’s hard to decide which one I like more. Unfortunately the two styles don’t mix easily, since the even-width tail doesn’t fit on an odd-width body and vice-versa. Of course, you may be able to make a fluffy tail which is 4x4, it’ll be rather large but suuuuuuuuuuuper fluffy hahah. That way, you can have multiple tail styles (narrow/fluffy, short/long, stiff/drooping, etc… pick one from each pair, so you get e.g. a long drooping narrow tail or a short fluffy tail which sticks up stiffly all the time) and they’d all fit together nicely on the even-width body type.
There’s a lot of potential to play around with ideas here – and this is only your first day of doing this! I’m impressed by how quickly you’re finding your style and overcoming challenges
Have you tested a ‘Z’ shaped tail? Like a pikachu pokemon? I think it may look better with stonehearth square style instead of the jagged diagonals.
I was going to model just the tail example, but a cat grow with it:
Oh, or like Rayya monkey:
Not that big… But you got the idea.
I guess there is also the question about animations with theese Purrs? Lets tag @Hyrule_Symbol and see if there is an opening in the schedule to help out? Or do you have others to help on that front @Bella_Chatlotte?
Thanks for tagging me @Fornjotr ! And in perfect timing since it was exactly when i was starting to look around!
And i will say those are some nice models! Though as mentioned above i would suggest using less extreme colors such as pure white or black and trying to de-saturate it a little with stuff like grays and lighter and less saturated colors so it’s less taxing to the eyes
Animating the Tail is absolutely doable, but it will cost a lot of time (and i mean a lot)
The benifit would be having the capability to have two-voxel wide center parts and it can be wavy without the stepping chunkiness, but the Human animation table is HUGE it’ll take a long time even if you only use about 5~10 mins on each animation and not to mention hooking them all up with the entity data as a mod
If you want to try it i’m more than happy to let you know how to do it since it’s pretty simple workaround to get it done, but i personally wouldn’t recommend it since there’s so many to do.
You basically have to manually open every single animation and animate/pose the tail for each of them, and there’s a lot of those animations
Another cheaper workaroud which i’m not to sure works will be having the tail as a type of equipment piece bound to the character, so i’ll stick to palvis bone, though i’m not so sire weather or not this is possible i can see it being a thing, but only coders/programmers can truly answer this question
This is my first time doing anythink like this. I’m a 2D digital artist, with zero experience on coding. But!! I really want to take this challenge and beat it. So please, do your best teaching me how to do it! -just spoke like a real pokemon trainner-
