Unvanquished Forum

The eggpod is the structure where alien players spawn from. It can be built on walls and ceilings and therefor needs to fit roughly into a cubic bounding box (the proportions of the concept are fine). The structure is made up of two main elements, the slightly flexible outer body and a slimy balloon that grows inside. The balloon should be a seperate mesh and needs to be modeled in a way that allows the animator to have it grow until it fills all the space inside the pod. It will then burst, spawning a new alien (this will be done by hiding the mesh and playing a particle effect) and regrow afterwards.

Have a look at the concept made by Pevel:

It would be nice if the sections of the egg's base would also drift apart a little while the balloon grows. For the balloon itself, note that unlike the concept (which depicted it as a membrane instead), any surface detail shouldn't stop where it touches the egg. Previous attempts have also shown that a glowing surface like this doesn't look as fitting in-game, so feel free to give it a more fleshy look (similiar to an amniotic sac maybe, though less translucent as atleast two different kinds of aliens can spawn inside and you shouldn't be able to tell which one until it bursts).

I would be interested in modelling it, but could I modify the concept a bit to make it more dynamic?

-R.

RXMT wrote:

I would be interested in modelling it, but could I modify the concept a bit to make it more dynamic?

Sure, the concept is just there to help you get inspired! Have fun!

Ping.

Here is what I have so far, I added an ''articulation'' in the shell design so it can open without bending too much

It's still early work, The veins in the balloon wil be better and shell ''leaves/petals'' will be symetrical and prettier :-p

(Balloon and shell are separated meshes)

I'm currently planning the way I will model, it so I was wondering what would be the ideal polycount(in triangles).

I will make 4096 textures(Bump Spec Diffuse) as usual

Should I use transparency or glow somewhere in the balloon?? I'm not too sure about that

I was planning to make the 8 ''leaves'' of the shell use the same texture space.

-R.

Hey, looking good so far! With regards to the balloon, we had some trouble with the last attempt that was based on the same concept and I feel that having it look good like this can be tough. So I'd say do whatever works and what you feel comfortable with and don't feel compelled to stick to the concept. Maybe something dark and slimy works better than anything that glows. (However, if you want to, feel free to use a glow map.)

I'm not sure about the polycount, maybe Ishq has some input there.

I would say 3000-6000 triangles is a good range. A little higher is okay, but the limit is 10k.

Here is what I have so far, I have been working on the low-res model, I'll have to refine the sculpting details

I managed to be at 5376 triangles

-R.

Sounds good to me!