Hi to all,

I'm getting my first try on Blender, a free 3D program. With the help of Jackal at DLTC forums (who provided new models and a tutorial), I plan to remake (yes, remake) all avatars of playable races.

Why?

Because several features of my mod cannot be implemented by simple ways: serpents-haired for medusae, hats for spriggans, flamesword, etc... The best way IMHO is to re-make them from scratch.
"Avatars replacement" is not only devolved to ROTM... Making new avatars is cool, but it should enable me to make others avatars the base engine lacks, especially for Gemrb. For example:

- female avatars for gnomes: ok, I can understand for that male/female dwarf avatar, as female dwarves wear beards; but that's not the case for gnomes!
- half-orc avatars (both male and female): they should be a bit more impressiv!
- new helmets: re-making of BGI-style helmet
- hair styles: in fact, it should be basically helm animations. You should admit that it could be cool to get long hair for your elf, "skinhead" for Minsc, etc.
- monk avatars for everyclass
- possible: 1)more weapons animations (a new flail, whip, double-blades/flails/axes, two-handed not hallebard-like axes, shields style - both BGI and BGII)
2)brand new avatars for races that you're not used to play with: orcs, lizard men, minotaur, etc...

It's no secret that's a LOT of work. Jackal is himself a 2 year experienced modeler/animator and it took him near three months of work to make decent minotaur avatar, including mino and weapons rendering, but NOT bams making... So do not expect a release soon, even at the end of 2005... End 2006 is a more valuable!

The pack should released in three step:
1- new animations to replace existing ones, with an optionnal component such as BGI-style shields and helmets, and flamesword implemented
2-new (minor) contents for Gemrb: hair styles, new weapons animations...
3-brand new avatars and such, for half-orcs, lizard-men, minotaurs and orcs. For Gemrb of course.

I should need some help: can someone do for me some concept art for gnomes, half-orcs, and possibly for the extra races too?

thats sounds great! it also sounds like a huge undertaking I am not sure about this but this may be helpful (I think this can be done) but if you save the animations (in 3d) as just the bones, then you can save the movements and then just apply the skin of the different people (the animation will have to be changed for the smaller races tho) well I hope that helps. good luck.

Yes, it should make it easier. Remember that there's some limitations in the engine: skeletons of dwarves and halflings must be the same, for example.
For the extra avatars, I plan to make some changes: making more bestial half-orcs for example...
Of course, if it can help for Gemrb, I would like to make brand new movements!

The rest of it sounds good, but bald character avatars can already be achieved by setting the hair to the same color as skin, the problem is it makes paperdolls look wierd.

If this is finished it will be superb! But it seems it will take a while before you will start with the actual game...

Don't you ever loose your enthusiasm!

Sounds awesome!