=== [TASK] === European Bison - Bison Bonasus

[MrLux]

 

Hey folks,

To get the hang of things here is the model and texture for the european bison. I worked from a 3000 tri model and a 2k complete texture and for the game the I tried to follow the bovidae specs found in the game file.

I more than welcome feedback on any aspect. I got the textures from wiki commons and can provide the originals. I think I the back legs should be higher for the european bison but really after tweaking I could't tell.

Engine compliant (i hope) version. 574 triangles, a slight more than the bovidae

 

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Eye candy hp and 2k texture version

 

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The files themselves

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bison_lp.dae

Source Texture, used a mix of those.

 

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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flachlandwisent_(Bison_bonasus_bonasus).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:46-212-5007_NNP_Skolivski_Beskydy_European_Bizon_RB_18.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_Bison_portrait.png
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_bonasus_Avesta.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:46-212-5007_NNP_Skolivski_Beskydy_European_Bizon_RB_18.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Зубри_у_Карпатах_(4).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bison_like_to_relax_just_about_anywhere_(27389785936).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Animals_in_Parc_de_Thoiry_49.jpg

 

Edited July 28, 2020 by MrLux
spoiler + texture image source

[MrLux]

Thank you. I'll add the animation during the week if the model is validated. I imported the .dae from the bovidae to try to get the same skeleton but I'm wondering if I can't make a more versatile quadripede skeleton as I intend to model more animals from the list?

[Stan`]

Some limitations with bones 63 bones maximum.  Else an option called GPU Skinning will do some very bad things. With regards to a better armature sure go ahead, you might want to see if you can reuse it for the muskox

You  will need a skeleton file → https://github.com/StanleySweet/0AD-Skeleton-Generator ← You can feed it dae files and it will generate the file for you to put in art/skeletons

Usually we prefix the bones to avoid conflicts with other skeletons.

The actual model looks very good. I can't wait to see how it looks in game.  how did you make the texture ? Make sure to only use CC0 or CC-BY-SA 3.0 references, and in case of the later, to mention the person who took the image.

With regards to the UV you could probably optimize it a bit. The horns use too much space compared to their size which would be better used for the rest of the body.  The animal is not symmetrical (with regards to the texture)  but if you make it so, you can save also a lot of space (It's a matter of taste as it looks good right now )

 

 

[Nescio]

It looks promising!

Yes, Wikimedia Commons usually has many nice images, in this case https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Bison_bonasus

I'm certainly no expert, but to me it seems wisents have a more-or-less horizontal back and belly and a large hump at their shoulders:

Yours, in contrast, seems to have an upward-pointing back and belly and two humps but a hole at the shoulders:

[Nescio]

9 hours ago, MrLux said:

I intend to model more animals from the list?

 Great! I'd love to see more animals.

Since the introduction of cattle last year, in my opinion the most important animals missing in 0 A.D. from a socio-historical point of view are:

• ducks, especially the mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)
• geese, especially the greylag goose (Anser anser)
• Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus)

0 A.D. also has a deer, but it's unclear which species it is. There exist dozens of deer species, ideally 0 A.D. would have several, or at least the most important:

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• red deer (Cervus elaphus)
• roe deer (Capreolus capreolus)
• fallow deer (Dama dama)
• chital or spotted deer (Axis axis)
• barking deer (Muntiacus muntjak)
• elk/moose (Alces alces)
• wapiti/elk (Cervus canadensis)
• reindeer/caribou (Rangifer tarandus)

 

20 hours ago, Stan` said:

not Bison Bison, due to the very European nature of this game

The fact that 0 A.D. is situated in Eurasia hasn't prevented the addition of muskoxen (native to Canada) or black bears (native to North America), though, so I'd say the American bison is welcome too, as are animals from other parts of the world.

2 hours ago, Stan` said:

With regards to a better armature sure go ahead, you might want to see if you can reuse it for the muskox

Despite their name, muskoxen are closely related to goats, sheep, and takin. For the difference between Bovidae (bovids), Bovinae (bovines), and Bovini (cattle family), this cladogram from Wikipedia might be helpful:

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Edited July 28, 2020 by Nescio
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[Stan`]

30 minutes ago, Nescio said:

The fact that 0 A.D. is situated in Eurasia hasn't prevented the addition of muskoxen (native to Canada) or black bears (native to North America), though, so I'd say the American bison is welcome too, as are animals from other parts of the world.

Sure. Now it's better to have animals for biomes we actually have considering the big amount of work they represent.

 

[MrLux]

2 hours ago, Nescio said:

I'm certainly no expert, but to me it seems wisents have a more-or-less horizontal back and belly and a large hump at their shoulders: 

Yours, in contrast, seems to have an upward-pointing back and belly and two humps but a hole at the shoulders:

You are right, with the volume I tried to emulate the thickness of the fur on the back of the references images I got. with just the shape it looks like an ox but the texture adds the necessary detail to distinguish. I'll try a version more flat, see if we see a difference in the game(with the top 3/4 view).

1 hour ago, Nescio said:

 Great! I'd love to see more animals.

Since the introduction of cattle last year, in my opinion the most important animals missing in 0 A.D. from a socio-historical point of view are:

• ducks, especially the mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)
• geese, especially the greylag goose (Anser anser)
• Bactrian camel (Camelus bactrianus)

 

Yeah, I'm up to make those nasty agressive geese and the rest. Is there a priority on the deer species?

4 hours ago, Stan` said:

Some limitations with bones 63 bones maximum.  Else an option called GPU Skinning will do some very bad things. With regards to a better armature sure go ahead, you might want to see if you can reuse it for the muskox

The actual model looks very good. I can't wait to see how it looks in game.  how did you make the texture ? Make sure to only use CC0 or CC-BY-SA 3.0 references, and in case of the later, to mention the person who took the image.

With regards to the UV you could probably optimize it a bit. The horns use too much space compared to their size which would be better used for the rest of the body.  The animal is not symmetrical (with regards to the texture)  but if you make it so, you can save also a lot of space (It's a matter of taste as it looks good right now )

 

 

Wow 63 bones is great. I do't think I'll need that much. The idea would just be to have a blend file with meta rigs and let the animator use rigify to generated their control rig and always just export the deform bones.

I've done the texturing with blender, using two texture and the stencil tool then some hours of painting. I might go for substance if it proves useful and quicker. I'm just not sure about the licence, because if I have the legal right to use the software I retain the right to do whatever I want with the result.

For the UV I know that I could have used a symmetrical halved one, force of habit to make better texture and less seams. I'll try that version.

[Stan`]

8 minutes ago, MrLux said:

Wow 63 bones is great. I do't think I'll need that much. The idea would just be to have a blend file with meta rigs and let the animator use rigify to generated their control rig and always just export the deform bones.

Like this one?

On 2/6/2019 at 4:22 PM, Alexandermb said:

Cattle.7z 2.95 MB · 4 downloads

 

8 minutes ago, MrLux said:

 

I've done the texturing with blender, using two texture and the stencil tool then some hours of painting. I might go for substance if it proves useful and quicker. I'm just not sure about the licence, because if I have the legal right to use the software I retain the right to do whatever I want with the result.

Yeah the question is about those two textures   If it's derivative work the authors should be credited.

 

[MrLux]

I edited the original post with my sources link. Everything is on wiki commons and as far as I saw under CCAS alike 4.0 international.

[Stan`]

8 minutes ago, MrLux said:

I edited the original post with my sources link. Everything is on wiki commons and as far as I saw under CCAS alike 4.0 international.

Thanks, as long as it's not NC we should generally be fine, but we have to be careful anyway.

[MrLux]

what is NC? I don't have experience with the free licences and the general legal things.

[Nescio]

12 minutes ago, MrLux said:

what is NC? I don't have experience with the free licences and the general legal things.

See https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/

Assets in the public domain (“CC0”) or licensed under CC BY (attribution) or CC BY-SA (attribution and share-alike) can be used. Things released under NC (non-commercial) or ND (no derivatives allowed) can't.

[Nescio]

A few more images that could be helpful, first a few side views (note the distance between front and hindlegs, the length of their hindlegs, and the size of their tail):

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Some skeletons:

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Some skulls:

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And their historic range (green):

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21 hours ago, MrLux said:

I'll try a version more flat, see if we see a difference in the game(with the top 3/4 view).

Keep in mind it's possible to view things in game from any angle.

21 hours ago, MrLux said:

Is there a priority on the deer species?

No, not at all. I listed them in the order I'd prefer to see them added, however, that's just my two cents. It's completely up to artists to decide what they want to work on, and when.

One other thing, sexual dimorphism varies greatly from species to species. Often it's not very pronounced (e.g. wolves, horses, camels, tigers), but sometimes different actors are needed (e.g. cattle, elephants, lions). For the bison, the differences are not that great, bulls are a bit larger and have differently shaped horns, but nothing that's really noticeable from a distance, so one version is sufficient. However, many deer species have clearly visible differences (size, fur, antlers) and may need two or three versions: male (stag, buck), female (doe), and young (fawn).

[MrLux]

Okay, got it. Took me an hour but I managed to get the model in game after modifying with the feedback. So the back is more flat and the legs a bit higher (minor tweaks). At first I took the scale of the bull but then I read that speciemens tend to be 1.8m to 2.2m hight so here is a ingame screenshot from the Atlas. Added the horse actor and iberian hero swordsman as a scale.

 

Also there are the files in the respectives folders. I just used copy paste on the main art in mods/public for my convienience. I don't know how you want to receive it.

About the naming convention, I went for animal_latin-name_variantion . Should it be otherwise?

Lastly, I have two questions:

- I got that I can rotate entities in the atlas but I don't know how to make them, any help, any use?

- Animations are already listed even if the model doesn't have those. Is it because they are limited, and should I fit mine into those already describe (like th hawk that 'walks' by flying) ?

art.zip

[Lopess]

Congratulations for the incredible work I hope will be added to 0ad. 

[Stan`]

Hey thanks for keeping up with this!

Some comments

• We need to improve the texture quality somehow, it definitely looks blurry compared to the other animals.
• You should smooth shade the faces, they look blocky right now
• Under certain angles the legs look extra skinny

• There is a visual glitch on the tail

8 hours ago, MrLux said:

Also there are the files in the respectives folders. I just used copy paste on the main art in mods/public for my convienience. I don't know how you want to receive it.

This way is fine

8 hours ago, MrLux said:

About the naming convention, I went for animal_latin-name_variantion . Should it be otherwise?

In

binaries\data\mods\public\art\actors\fauna

It should be bison_bonasus_adult to match the others

In

binaries\data\mods\public\art\meshes\skeletal

Should be animal_bison_bonasus_adult Make sure to untick the option that exports textures in Blender

In

binaries\data\mods\public\art\skeletons

Armature should be something like bovidae_skeleton.xml While exporting make sure you also fix the armature name in Blender.

8 hours ago, MrLux said:

- I got that I can rotate entities in the atlas but I don't know how to make them, any help, any use?

How to make them rotate? You need to keep the button pressed after placing an object and move the mouse You can also rotate the camera

8 hours ago, MrLux said:

Animations are already listed even if the model doesn't have those. Is it because they are limited, and should I fit mine into those already describe (like th hawk that 'walks' by flying) ?

Yeah they are currently hardcoded.

You need at least

• walk
• idle
• death
• attack
• feed
• There is also walk feed

In order to make the animal attackable and visible without actors(all)

you need to create a template file in

binaries\data\mods\public\simulation\templates\fauna

e.g. fauna_bison_bonasus

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Entity parent="template_unit_fauna_hunt_defensive_bull">
  <Identity>
    <GenericName>European Bison</GenericName>
    <SpecificName>Bison bonasus</SpecificName>
    <Icon>gaia/fauna_cow.png</Icon>
  </Identity>
  <VisualActor>
    <Actor>fauna/bison_bonasus_adult.xml</Actor>
  </VisualActor>
</Entity>

You will also need an icon, but that can be settled later.

EDIT: Keep up the great work!

 

[MrLux]

Hey folks,

I'm injured at the moment and that halted my work on the assets. I've made the change with your feedback nonetheless but the animation part is taking way longer as I'm new in that department. 

Anyway I also couldn't get the new model to work properly in the atlas, something about the skeleton that is not recognised but I still use your script @Stan` so I don't know what I've done wrong. I'll try later with the animation baked.

I'm also sharing the blend file in case something happens. There is the new skeleton for quadruped herbivores with two prop bones for the neck and the back. Should be usefull later. it's also rigged with handles and fairly easy to use for those that are familiar with riggify on blender. Just remember to export the .dae with the option only deform bones checked to not get all the helper bones of riggify. art.rar

bison-bonasus.rar

[Stan`]

Hey, thanks for keeping it up.

Sorry to hear you injured yourself :/ Hope you get well soon

With regards to the mesh, I'm not exactly sure what happens, but I'd try to avoid bones named like so       <bone name="DEF-Bovidae_ReartLegTop_L.001"> especially when a bone is named     <bone name="DEF-Bovidae_ReartLegTop_L">

I'll try to look in more details tomorrow.

Also when opening your blend file it says it's missing a python file for the rigging ui, any addons I should have ?

 

 

[Stan`]

I had another look, and the armature doesn't even match the one in the blend file :/ Did you export something else ? e.g. there is no ORG-Bovidae_spine1 bone

[MrLux]

Hum... ok, I'll get another look. I might have mix up some things

[MrLux]

Back !

 

So the bison is updated, new texture, more detail. Bovidae skeleton to conform to the rest, sorry folks I'm not still cut to do animation. I almost choked myself.

Now I don't get why I can't import it into Alas. 

 The file with I think the correct hierarchy: public.rar

I can't make them work, gosh darn it. I don't get it. And the error message is really generic, can't load. Someone wants to help an artist in need ?

[wowgetoffyourcellphone]

7 hours ago, MrLux said:

Back !

 

So the bison is updated, new texture, more detail. Bovidae skeleton to conform to the rest, sorry folks I'm not still cut to do animation. I almost choked myself.

Now I don't get why I can't import it into Alas. 

 The file with I think the correct hierarchy: public.rar

I can't make them work, gosh darn it. I don't get it. And the error message is really generic, can't load. Someone wants to help an artist in need ?

@Stan`

[Stan`]

@MrLux

You made a mistake in the actor file you wrote

    <variant frequency="1" name="Mesh">
      <mesh>skeletal/europeanBison-bison_bonasus_neutralGeneric.dae</mesh>
      <textures>
        <texture file="skeletal/europeanBison-bison_bonasus_neutralGeneric.png" name="baseTex"/>
      </textures>
    </variant>

instead of

    <variant frequency="1" name="Mesh">
      <mesh>skeletal/europeanBison_bison-bonasus_neutralGeneric.dae</mesh>
      <textures>
        <texture file="skeletal/europeanBison-bison_bonasus_neutralGeneric.png" name="baseTex"/>
      </textures>
    </variant>

If I were you I'd use bison_european.dae would make mistakes much easier to spot

 

Then you added too many vertex groups, you don't need any for IKs and prop_

[MrLux]

Yes ! Finally, working.

Thanks for the feedback, and keep it coming. 

The File : europeanbison.rar

Ok, next time it's going to be quicker.

Had to tweak the tail to avoid backface culling, and the overall size of the beast was changed to feel more like a true bison. Cleaned the vertex groups and the xml. Everything is fineeeee.

The template is based on the muskox. And added an icon trying to emulate the style of the other ones with the halo. I'll just for the sake of it.

Also here is some eyecandy.

 

Edit: also the blend file eurpeanBison_shared.rar

Edited September 16, 2020 by MrLux

[Stan`]

We got some feedback about them being too boxy on facebook