Universal Quadruped

LXBlack

An idea I had. I would make it myself but I know that anyone on here could do it better. Basicaly it's a blank four leged animal that can be morphed into any four leged animal. By turning two morph dials to half the user would then obtain an entirely new animal, a three animal chimera could also be made with the dials at a third and so on reducing the values as new animals are added.

My origional idea was for these to be morphs for genesis alowing the new chreatures to also be part human but it seems some people want to keep humanoids and quadrupeds seperate.

Anyway, I would pay to make use of a Universal Quadruped figure so someone please read this and decide to create it.

larsmidnatt

we asked for this when the original genesis came out.

LXBlack

Why do we still not have it then?

Chohole

maybe because it is not a feasible proposition?

LXBlack

Chohole said:

maybe because it is not a feasible proposition?

How is it not feasable? It's certainly possible easy in fact. Genesis has been turned into a dog already after all. There's no need to make a morph for every single animal species, not that there havent been packs of several morphs in the past, a small selection would be enough. There must be some factor I havent thought of preventing this.

Richard Haseltine

A universal quadryped would have the issues that Genesis universal biped did, with a single weight mapping for both male and female figures, writ large. There are limits to how much you can change the geometry without needing to redo the weight maps. I'm not aware of a generally successful morph from bipedal Genesis to a quadruped - RawArt's lycanthropes etc. don't go quite that far.

Oso3D

I think it's doable, but if male humans are barely worth developing, I suspect the roi is poor. Personally,I'd imagine two main uv sets for long vs. short legs, and possibly a fat legs option for things like elephants. The problem is that universal solutions will be less detailed and lower quality than specifically tailored creations. On the other hand, the work to make a universal quadruped might capture a larger market and many existing quadrupeds are rather dated. In short, -I'd- certainly buy it, I hope someone makes it, but I have low hope it will.

larsmidnatt

timmins.william said:

I suspect the roi is poor. 

they barely sell new Daz animals anymore, and even the freak is to niche to support :/ So yeah it's doable but ain't gonna happen. Probably would have to be a few different ones to accomadate for different limb types, unless we end up geografting the limbs... not all limbs are built the same... 

so yeah lots of planning, probably would need lots of products to make everyone happy. some would love it, probably not sell enough for the effort. It would be a lot harder than a freak character, and from what I understand he was pretty challenging to pull off. (regular humans pretty standard fair, super duper muscles, runs into issues)

FirstBastion

It's certainly possible easy in fact.

 I had to quote that,  just cause. 

Oso3D

Lars: It becomes a question of how much more work would it be to make a universal solution with presets than a single animal, and how much larger a market you'd get.

It's POSSIBLE that having a universal model to make monsters and passable dogs/cats/wolves (plus, of course, LAMH opportunities!) would get a larger multiplier of potential buyers. Like, 3x as much work but 5x as many sales -- after all, people can just buy your one package instead of dozens of animals.

 

Or it's possible that you spend a year of your life and find it's just not doable, or someone comes out with something better, or you make the thing and people don't buy it enough, or people just complain and whine that the dog doesn't look good enough and you're so stupid/selfish/moneygrabby.

 

Oso3D

You know, come to think of it, I'd be really keen on having a quadruped that wasn't specifically real world animals, but just highly configurable, so it could be a wide variety of fantasy and scifi creatures.

 

larsmidnatt

I would mostly care for the fantasy/sci fi creatures myself.

But I think they would have to do different quad animals if they were going to do it at all due to rigging issues.(again, save for crazy geografts with bones for the limbs...)

 Horses are largely different from dogs with how they move. Yet both are quads. So you would have to rig them very differently. Same for dragons. And many lizards move differently than dragons (instead of upright, many shuffle their legs on the side).

So I do think it's probably easier and more profitable to make single animals. The extra work is pretty huge and it produces some new challenges in workflow. I think a versatile quad is possible, but not a universal one. So a handful of versatile quads probably would cover most peoples needs.

Chohole

Cat    Dog

Rabbit  badger 

Squirrel mouse

 

Just a few to demonstrate the differnces.

 

Oso3D

My daydream is something like Spore, where the system could procedurally work out what gait and similar animals would have. ;)

As for lizards and mammal gait, that's an interesting thing with ties to dinosaurs:

LXBlack

Richard Haseltine said:

A universal quadryped would have the issues that Genesis universal biped did, with a single weight mapping for both male and female figures, writ large. There are limits to how much you can change the geometry without needing to redo the weight maps. I'm not aware of a generally successful morph from bipedal Genesis to a quadruped - RawArt's lycanthropes etc. don't go quite that far.

So the ManWolf slipped under the radar then?

It sounds like a new method of rigging (one alowing the bones to change when morphs are aplied) would need to be developed before my exact idea is possible. Like I said in the origional post, the point was the blend animals rather than stick parts onto them so geografing isnt an acceptable solution to me. which means the idea realisticaly cant be done yet. I'm disapointed by that.

Oso3D

On the subject of quadrupeds... this is what I could manage. Sorta. ;)

 

 

SickleYield

I think timmins.william is correct.  Speaking only for myself: I couldn't interest other PAs in doing texture or pose expansions for my snake, and that barely paid back my time; there's no way in a million years I'd attempt something that requires as many people collaborating as a universal biped.  Yes, I could create that base, but then what?  Massively transformative morphs require a lot of special rigging and texturing, and the number of artists who could actually do that for G1 was small.  I'm pretty sure all of them already have plans for their next hundred work hours.

The next time I do a creature it will probably be more tentacles and/or tentacle monsters.  Those were hard, but at least they paid back and were something I could reasonably finish on my own.

Cris Palomino

LXBlack said:

Richard Haseltine said:

A universal quadryped would have the issues that Genesis universal biped did, with a single weight mapping for both male and female figures, writ large. There are limits to how much you can change the geometry without needing to redo the weight maps. I'm not aware of a generally successful morph from bipedal Genesis to a quadruped - RawArt's lycanthropes etc. don't go quite that far.

So the ManWolf slipped under the radar then?

It sounds like a new method of rigging (one alowing the bones to change when morphs are aplied) would need to be developed before my exact idea is possible. Like I said in the origional post, the point was the blend animals rather than stick parts onto them so geografing isnt an acceptable solution to me. which means the idea realisticaly cant be done yet. I'm disapointed by that.

While it is somewhat successful, it still looks like a man down on all fours to me.  This may be sufficient for certain things.  There are certainly limitations and concessions made to work with a figure such as this.  However, your original premise was for something that would not only allow for a "universal" quadruped to become any four-legged animal, but to blend between animals to create chimeras.  The you added human aspects to meld with animal ones.  Any figure that needs to provide complete change states would make a lot of concessions in order to accomodate the range desired.  It's tough enough to create things within a normal range (different animal breeds or types from one animal mesh) without going to completely different rigging needs.  Those are normally handled by creating a new figure and sold as that new breed or type.  The difficulty is in your hope of having it all happen within one mesh with lots of dials.  To me, it's just unrealistic and would produce creatures that kinda look like this or that rather than ones that look like what they are meant to be.

LXBlack

Cris Palomino said:

LXBlack said:

Richard Haseltine said:

A universal quadryped would have the issues that Genesis universal biped did, with a single weight mapping for both male and female figures, writ large. There are limits to how much you can change the geometry without needing to redo the weight maps. I'm not aware of a generally successful morph from bipedal Genesis to a quadruped - RawArt's lycanthropes etc. don't go quite that far.

So the ManWolf slipped under the radar then?

It sounds like a new method of rigging (one alowing the bones to change when morphs are aplied) would need to be developed before my exact idea is possible. Like I said in the origional post, the point was the blend animals rather than stick parts onto them so geografing isnt an acceptable solution to me. which means the idea realisticaly cant be done yet. I'm disapointed by that.

While it is somewhat successful, it still looks like a man down on all fours to me.  This may be sufficient for certain things.  There are certainly limitations and concessions made to work with a figure such as this.  However, your original premise was for something that would not only allow for a "universal" quadruped to become any four-legged animal, but to blend between animals to create chimeras.  The you added human aspects to meld with animal ones.  Any figure that needs to provide complete change states would make a lot of concessions in order to accomodate the range desired.  It's tough enough to create things within a normal range (different animal breeds or types from one animal mesh) without going to completely different rigging needs.  Those are normally handled by creating a new figure and sold as that new breed or type.  The difficulty is in your hope of having it all happen within one mesh with lots of dials.  To me, it's just unrealistic and would produce creatures that kinda look like this or that rather than ones that look like what they are meant to be.

Yeah. While I'll never be able to give up on this dream I can accept that it isnt all that possible yet. Maybe in a few lifetimes I'll be able to come back and ask again and it will be more doable.

Oso3D

In my image above and another result with trying to make a somewhat humanoid cat, I noticed a few key elements:

Going from human to quadruped, the leg layout (for all mammals) is mostly the same, barring some variation in toes. The big shift is in proportion of bones -- in many animals, the 'thigh' is extremely short, the shin is very long, and the foot is usually extended and the toes are walked on (digitigrade).

The other big and problematic element is where the neck connects. Most mammals, the spine connects out the back of the skull, while in humans it's shifted more underneath. When making a cat-humanoid, I found I had to shut off limits for the neck and bend the neck absurdly to fit.

So, if I were going to, say, engineer Genesis for quadrupeds, what I would do:

• Come up with a UV map based around different limb proportions -- shorter thighs, longer shins and feet, generally shorter limbs, longer torso.
• Some sort of modification for the neck to link further back (I have no idea how doable this is)
• Some presets for body proportions and posture/pose. This is the easiest, if you get the previous two.

Helpful pics:

Oso3D

Oh, and I wanted to add, SickleYield... singers of chzor is one of my favorite purchases. Tentacles have been useful in many many areas. Heck, retexture as a pipe, or cable, or ...

 

Oso3D

Also:

Compared to the cat, the thigh is shorter. The big difference, in general proportions, is the pose of the legs -- the horse's limbs are straightened out a great deal, compared to the more coiled up limbs of a cat.

 

LXBlack

Ok, what if it wasnt necesary for it to animate? Becomes less usable in scenes but then the morphs start working right? Could that be done?

larsmidnatt

LXBlack said:

Ok, what if it wasnt necesary for it to animate? Becomes less usable in scenes but then the morphs start working right? Could that be done?

Not really because posing and animating are the same thing effectively. If you can't pose it right, you can't animated it. You need to pose it for the work most people do. Means muscles need to move properly and all that jazz.