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"Barnacle" Model for Unreal Tournament 2003 ver. 2225

Modeled, Textured, Animated, & everything else by Michael Stearns
email: rvr67michael@charterremovethis.net (remove "removethis")

Descripton: A giant crab with colorful pants and many rocky protrusions.

1252 Vertices
2474 Faces
1 1024x1024 Texture Map + Portrait
Original Skeleton + Animations

Tools used: 3DStudio Max 5, Karma Tools, Paint Shop Pro 7, Painter Classic

This archive may be freely distributed by anyone anywhere as long as its contents remain unchanged.

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2/28/04
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You should be able to simply unzip this file into your UT2003 directory and be in good shape, but here's a list of contents anyway in case you want to install it by hand.  :)

textures/BarnaTextures.utx
system/MDS_BarnacleUT2k3.upl
Karmadata/BarnacleUT2k3.ka
Animations/BarnacleUT2k3.utx

If you enjoy this model (or even if you hate it) please drop me an email, I'd be glad to hear what you think.  Also be sure to check out my other model, Beluga, available at my homepage (the link's at the bottom) and at many online sources for UT2003 models.  


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If you would like a Bio for this character (and why wouldn't you?) simply copy and paste the following line (and make sure it stays one single line) onto a new line in the XPlayer.int file.  Be careful not to change any of the existing entries!

Barnacle=Name: Barnacle|Age: ???|Race: Crustacean||Data:|After hundreds of years of undisturbed slumber at the bottom of the sea, this ancient crab awoke to find himself covered in parasites.  Driven mad by this itchy new burden, Barnacle raged onto the shore, violently attacking everything in his sight until crafty villagers subdued him with heavy liquors.  Nowadays, Barnacle has grown accustomed to the weight added to his mighty exoskeleton, making him stronger than ever; he has also grown accustomed to the alcoholic drinks prized by land-dwellers, perhaps explaining his choice of attire.||Likes: Bars|Dislikes: Hot Springs||

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Release Notes / Self Critique:

* With my last model, the game would crash every time the character died when using UT2003 without the 2225 patch (or higher).  I'm not bothering to test this model in the same way, but since I have no idea what was causing thr problem I assume it's still present in this model.  So basically, if you don't have it, get the patch!  The goodies extend far beyond just allowing you to use my carelessly-produced models.

* This is my second model with original animations.  Like Beluga before, the different body structure--and, y'know, additional limbs--just seemed to warrant it.  So once again you have to put up with animations that I created.  I like to think that I improved in some areas, although my technical ability hasn't changed much.  While I think the walk looks more lively than Beluga's, there's still something bothering me about it.  The bone structure in the legs also seems to have been a poor choice (I don't know what I was thinking exactly) and although it's still far from perfect leg deformation, the important thing is that I learned something again.  And his ass at least is much smoother than Beluga's.  Not such an important feature for a giant crab, but hey, it was something I considered important.  The flower placement on the texture is rather unfortunate, and clearly the lesson here is "put stuff like that on places that don't stretch."  

* As I say regarding the animation, things are better-modelled (but still not ideal) to allow for leg movement.  I cheated on his arms and simply kept them as seperate pieces, which is probably the best solution to allow them a full range of motion since they are supposed to look jointed.  If you look close you can see that the bones are not in the exact best places in those joints, but in general it's not noticeable.  

* I should also say I cut even more corners on the animation than I did with Beluga, his side-runs are more dirived from the forward run, and.. well, I tried to cut out as many of the 84 sequences as I could.  I still went nuts on the standstills though, because they're so much fun to do, and there may even be one or two that don't appear in-game, or at least I haven't seen in-game.  The "gesture_cheer" in particular I was quite pleased with, but it doesn't seem to actually show up anywhere.  I also removed the vulgar pelvic thrust (sorry :) and replaced it with a silly hip-dance that I think is more entertaining.  

* Working on this model I felt that my texturing skills were perhaps not really up to snuff.  Technically it's obvious, though whether or not this stems from my own taste as far as "style" goes or an actual lack of ability is a bit up in the air.  I like the way the model looks, but moreso than Beluga he seems a bit out of place in the game, perhaps it's the brighter color scheme.  I meant to do an alternate skin but as I sat there tweaking the curves trying to turn his shell to a nice green color I just got fed up with it.  Maybe some other time I'll have a better handle on that stuff..

* Going from concept-to-model on this one didn't come out as well as with Beluga.  The concept was less-defined in the first place, and my sketches to define him better ended up removing some of what made him cool and dynamic in the first place.  I regret the shrinking of his mandible-claws but I stand by the decision anyway, as I was to keep the polycount down to a Beluga-ish level.  Ultimately the model is a somewhat different character than the original concept, and you can see that in the Bio illustration where I went totally 2D with him--I didn't really realize how far off I was until I was almost finished.  I'm not sure if I could have conveyed that in a 3D model, or if perhaps the model as it is is closer than I give it credit for.  Anyway, I personally think the model would have benefitted from more 2D development first to help pin down the shape.

* Like Beluga, Barnacle is a deliberate misnomer.  He is a crab with what I attempted to convey as barnacles ON HIM.  My brother asked "why don't the barnacles have their wavey fans out?" and the reason is because they ARE ALL DEAD HA HA HA HA HA!!!  That's what happens when you take 'em out of water anyway..  As for Barnacle himself, as far as scientific accuracy goes, he's missing like four limbs, but I didn't want to be THAT excessive... (perhaps an additional set of legs?  But then he couldn't have worn the pants!)  Also, crabs (and spiders too) don't have heads that can move around, they have a single torso-head thing called a cephalothorax that restricts head movement.  I went ahead and moved his head around anyway (distorting an otherwise inflexible-looking surface) because it just gives his animations much more personality.  Also, I imagine most crabs don't have so many cracks all over their shells, but again, it just comes down to what I thought would look good.  


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Special Thanks

While I used a number of tutorials and resources to get the hang of this sort of thing, I have to say it would not have been possible at all without all the fellows at Polycount forums (special kudos to Skullbox for solving my karma problems) who answered my inane questions, and the author of this extremely helpful tutorial:

http://www.sunny-d.com/ut2003tut_intro.html


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Links

My Homepage: http://www.rothware.com/rvr67michael
Amazing Karma Problems: http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~polycount/ubb/Forum8/HTML/003522.html?00000
