Coming Full Circle with the Snake

A few months ago, I set out to make a hydra by first modeling a snake. It was only after I had completed its geometry and textures that I cloned its heads and attached them to its body to make a five-headed hydra. Ironically, even though I had finished the snake's mesh ahead of the hydra's, it was the latter that I first uploaded to the Vault and the Nexus because that was what I had been commissioned to do.

A number of people expressed interest in the single-headed model, so I rigged the snake, adapted the hydra animations for it, and uploaded it to the Nexus. I tried to upload it to the Vault nearly twelve hours earlier, but as of this writing, its entry is still pending approval. As can be seen in the picture below, I provided both a non-tintable (left) and tintable model.



One of the good things about this model is that, if you need a smaller snake, you'll find that it actually "scales" well.



Like a serpent biting its own tail, my project has come full circle at last. It is such a relief to declare this Herculean effort over. I can now move on to making other models – nothing with scales please. I'm so sick of them.

Comments

Eguintir Eligard said…
Oh you are open to doing new models? Great to hear. I was under the impression this was a one off for Chaos.

I feel like I can do a model from scratch (Well already have) and animate it based on your information. I do still question how I create textures however (the 2d way that is). I wonder what you can say to this effect. In no quick time frame of course, as I have plenty to keep me busy just making my animations coherent.
June 1, 2012 at 12:22 PM
Frank Perez said…
I have a few more ideas I want to do, and I promised Casa that I'd show how to make custom armor, something I'd never done before but am willing to learn by doing.
June 1, 2012 at 1:48 PM
Eguintir Eligard said…
I think you already know how :). I tried it myself and it didn't work, until I realized that body armors are simply "body meshes".

So there is some skeleton assigning to do. It's too bad I had this neat Wang Computers t shirt and jeans planned out for an opening scene before the module. I will definitely follow along if you post your work flow on that but I suspect it is as I have said, just a matter of skeleton assignment.
June 1, 2012 at 11:44 PM
Lance Botelle (Bard of Althéa) said…
Superb Job Frank!

Thanks for making these ... Now I need to design an area to take advantage of them. :)

It's great to have somebody with your talent working on new creatures for us to use. More power to you!

Cheers!
Lance.
June 4, 2012 at 8:52 PM
Lance Botelle (Bard of Althéa) said…
Hi Frank,

I left you a message on the Vault about this as well, but I have another snake by Arpharazon (http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2Models.Detail&id=147) that clashes with yours.

Is it possible to rename some of your files to work around this? I was going to do it myself, but then thought you might wish to make an "official" version, which would be easier to keep updated if need be.

Cheers!
Lance.
June 4, 2012 at 10:07 PM
Frank Perez said…
Already done, Lance. Shaughn78 also reported this problem earlier. ;) version 1.1 of the giant snake is now available in the Vault and the Nexus.
June 5, 2012 at 12:16 AM
Lance Botelle (Bard of Althéa) said…
Hi Frank,

Thanks for doing that!

I will update my own now then.

Lance.
June 5, 2012 at 8:47 PM
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