Step 1: Buy and download existing 3d models to use as a starting point (a male figure and a female figure). So far, I have purchased these guys (for $25, not bad):
Why the low resolution? Several reasons: First of all, if we're going to have a crowd of these guys in OGRE, we need them to have a low polygon count in order for the engine to handle animating and rendering all of them in real time (I'd still like to be able to move a first person camera through the scene in real time as the ritual takes place). Secondly, fewer polygons means fewer texture surfaces to unwrap and that's a big plus, especially for someone like me (with only basic texturing experience). A possible disclaimer here is the anatomical "weight" of the two figures. Andean peoples seem a bit rounder in the face, but you'd be surprised at how difficult it is to find downloadable models that aren't athletic or shall we say "busty" (unless you're talking about the old lady models - no thanks, haha). Once I add clothing to them, this issue should dissolve slightly. Of course, the faces would still be skinny (more Caucasian-ish), but perhaps with the right texturing, this won't be very noticeable.Step 2: Add hair and clothing. According to Clark: "Males and females during the Inca period had long hair...each female had hundreds of tiny braids and possibly the males." So braids look like a good plan (for now anyway). As for the clothing, I have an accumulating database of reference images - some from Clark and some from another classmate who has met with Anne Tiballi (a Binghamton University grad student working with Andean mummies and the textiles found with them). I think I'll start adding features to the woman model first (no particular reason why, I just want to).
Step 3: Unwrap textures. Hopefully, this won't be too difficult to do (it's still the scariest part of the process for me, though). Basically how texturing works is that you obtain a texture map of your 3d model using various means of projecting the boundaries of their polygons onto a surface (for example, you could project onto a plane to get a "planar" projection or onto a sphere surrounding the model to get a "spherical" projection). The models I downloaded came with texture maps, but I'll probably have to create new texture maps after I add clothing and hair to them. Here's what the woman's looks like at the moment (no clothes or hair):
Once you have a texture map, you paint the colors that you want the model to have onto it. So, if I wanted to give the woman blue eyes, I would have to find the part of the texture map that corresponds to her face (see it there next to that gray bar midway down the image on the right?), find the eye polygons and color over them with blue (in Photoshop or some other image manipulation program). What you end up with is something like this:
(Assassin's Creed anybody? Haha). Obviously this is not the painted texture map that I'd use for the Incan woman, but you get the point.Step 4: Rig the models (i.e. add skeletons to them). This involves making a human joint structure for both models which can then be "bound" to them to make them move. Once that's done, I'll have to "paint weights" to make sure that if, say, I move the arm of the skeleton, only the model's arm moves and not a piece of his/her leg.
And that, my friends, is my current plan of action. :-)
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